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Rapid Photoperiodic Responses in Japanese Quail: Is Daylength Measurement Based upon a Circadian System?

AFRC Research Group on Photoperiodism & Reproduction, Department of Zoology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UG, United Kingdom

Trevor J. Nicholls

AFRC Research Group on Photoperiodism & Reproduction, Department of Zoology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UG, United Kingdom

Brian K. Follett

AFRC Research Group on Photoperiodism & Reproduction, Department of Zoology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UG, United Kingdom

Experimental photoperiods, presented either once only or repeatedly, were used to assess the oscillatory and hourglass properties of the photoperiodic clock in Japanese quail. Gonadectomized quail on 8-hr daylengths respond to a single skeleton photoperiod consisting of two 8-hr light pulses separated by 2 hr of darkness (i.e., LDLD 8:2:8:6) with a marked increase in secretion rate of luteinizing hormone (LH). This response suggests that the second light pulse interacts with a "photoinducible phase" (_i) lying some 10-16 hr from "dawn" (start of the first light pulse). If, however, groups of quail maintained on 8-hr daylengths are transferred to continuous darkness (DD), and the position of the _i is sought by a single 8-hr light pulse applied at various times on the first or third day of DD, then an increase in circulating LH is, at best, barely detectable. It would appear that a strongly responsive _i does not recur rhythmically in DD. Instead, the light pulse apparently acts primarily as a "dawn" signal that triggers a single cycle of photoinducibility, since a second 8-hr light pulse, placed to begin 2 hr after the end of the first, induces a large increase in plasma LH. Similar results are obtained if any single 8-hr light pulse presented to animals held in darkness is preceded, 10 hr earlier, by a short "dawn" light signal. Such dawn signals can be effective when very short; a pulse of only 30 sec can cause a subsequent _i. The dawn pulse is effective at any circadian phase and leads to a single cycle in photoinducibility. In contrast, a much longer light pulse (perhaps not less than 4 hr) is needed to interact with _i if significant gonadotropin secretion is to be stimulated.

In confirmation of the findings described above, we found that Nanda-Hamner lighting schedules have remarkably little effect in stimulating gonadotropin secretion in gonadectomized quail. There is, for example, a very marked difference between the effectiveness of "resonating" schedules such as LD 6:6, which stimulates a high LH secretion rate since each "inductive" light pulse is preceded by an appropriate "dawn" signal, and a theoretically effective schedule such as LD 6:30, which induces a very small response by comparison. Such schedules (even theoretically noninductive ones) can, however, be made very highly inductive if alternate light pulses are preceded by an appropriately positioned 15-min light pulse to act as "dawn."

Journal of Biological Rhythms, Vol. 2, No. 2, 139-152 (1987)
DOI: 10.1177/074873048700200205


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