MONTHLY CYCLES IN AN ORGANISM IN CONSTANT CONDITIONS DURING 1956 AND 1957

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Abstract
Potatoes, stored under constant conditions, including pressure, in automatic, continuous-recording respirometers were studied for 13 continuous months. Twelve uninterrupted synodic monthly periods of hourly data were obtained and analyzed for the average daily metabolic rate, acceleration in rate of oxygen consumption following the sealing of the respirometers after a brief exposure of the plants to room illumination, standard deviation of oxygen-consumption measurements and the form of the daily cycle in oxygen-consumption. Statistically significant synodic monthly cycles of oxygen-consumption with a skewed form were found, and were also demonstrated for the other independent parameters of metabolic change which were found to exhibit among themselves only low correlations in day-to-day changes. In each instance, in the average skewed monthly cycle for this period, the minimum occurred at the time of new moon, and maximum at the time of 3d quarter.