Biological clocks and visual systems in cave-adapted animals at the dawn of speleogenomics

Cave-adapted animals are characterized by extreme reduction or complete absence of eyes, reflecting their lack of exposure to daylight. Given the overall constancy of abiotic variables in the cave environment, one would also expect the relaxation and eventual loss of circadian rhythms, and with it, the regressive evolution of the underlying genetic biological clock. Remarkably, however, recent behavioral and molecular studies converge with earlier evidence that the biological clock remains conserved in cave-adapted species. Reviewing the structural and behavioral data on the relationship between the visual system and the biological clock in cave species, I assess the potential of deep sequencing for elucidating their evolutionary conservation and adaptive significance in the subterranean fauna. The combined evidence confirms the widespread conservation both of the visual system and of the behavior regulated by the biological clock in cave species. The data from over 40 vertebrate and arthropod species further reveal that the absence of activity rhythms is correlated with the regression of the visual system. At the same time, the network of biological clock genes is likely to be generally conserved in cave species, regulating rhythmic behaviors in response to non-visual cycling variables as well as organismal homeostasis. Arrhythmic, eyeless species of cave beetles emerge as the most stringent choice for using deep-sequencing approaches to test and explore the conservation of the biological clock, independently of the visual system.