Much of our understanding of biological rhythms relies on light-dark cycles imposed on animals in laboratories. Charalambos Kyriacou and colleagues have now monitored rhythmic behaviours of fruitflies kept in semiconfinement outdoors. They find striking differences from laboratory studies, such as wild-type phenotypes in flies with mutated genes believed to control circadian rhythms, and identify new balances between sources of rhythmic entrainment, including temperature and moonlight.
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