Are cyclic plant and animal behaviours driven by gravimetric mechanical forces?

A GIF entitled "Are cyclic plant and animal behaviours driven by gravimetric mechanical forces?" was based on the paper of the same name.

The movements of the Earth, Sun and Moon are represented as animation. These movements cause variations in gravitational force.

These variations, called Gravimetric Tides, can be felt by all matter on earth, live, represented by a plant image, or inert, represented by a rock.

This could be enough to shape rhythmic activities of organisms.

This paper highlights the close association between the omnipresent gravimetric tides and cyclic activity through three case studies.

The first animation has an isopod moving around to show that the cycles of isopods swimming and hunting match these rhythms. There is also a graph showing the number of swimming isopods and the local gravimetric tide. The increased swimming appears in conjunction with local peaks of tides.

The second animation has a coral spawning to show that each month, coral reproduction aligns with the gravimetric tide.

The third animation has a seed germinating to show that molecular activity in sunflower seedlings coincides with the force.

Footnote has the official SEB logo, and the written content is: Are cyclic plant and animal behaviours driven by gravimetric mechanical forces? Cristiano de Mello Gallep and Daniel Robert. Journal of Experimental Botany, Volume 73, issue 4, Feb 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erab462. Visual abstract created by artist Deepika Nandan. Funded through an outreach grant awarded to Ravindra Nettimi and Krishna Anujan.