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Diel cycles in plants

The word diel is used in scientific publications to mean a time span of 24 hours, in physical, environmental and biological sciences : e.g. of expressions "diel fluctuations in temperature", "diel leaf growth cycle", "seasonal and diel variation in soil respiration".

Diel (′dī′el), an adjective coming from the latin Dies (day), is used synonymously with daily (diurnal + nocturnal period) ; contrariwise to circadian rhythms, a diel rythm does not imply an inner biological clock of the organism.

According to search results from bibliographic data bases, the word diel appears in ecology papers of the 1960's, although first known use is indicated circa 1935 in Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary ; it appears more frequent with present-day development of scientific publications on cyclical activity patterns of biological organisms: 2, 175, 598, 784, 815 papers for decades from 1960 to 2010, respectively, in OvidSP.