Sandpipers forgo sleep for days because there’s too much sex to be had
It’s June in the Arctic tundra, and male pectoral sandpiper hasn’t slept for weeks. He’s too busy trying to have sex. The females will only be fertile for three short weeks, and they’re very choosy. A male has to spend his time chasing the females and displaying with his puffed-up breast, while fighting off rivals and maintaining control of his territory. With so much at stake and so little time, there is simply no time for sleeping.
You might have thought that this constant activity would take its toll on the male. Sleep, after all, is important for our physical and mental wellbeing. Males who go without it for too long should be too tired and addled to make successful suitors. But not so – John Lesku from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology found that the males who slept the least actually sired the most offspring.
Lesku’s study complicates our understanding of sleep, which was already pretty complicated. For an activity that we all do, we still don’t fully understand what sleep is for. One hypothesis says that sleep has active benefits. It helps the brain to recover from the excesses of a day spent awake, and gives us time to strengthen the memories that we’ve made. There are dozens of studies, in humans and other animals, which support this idea.
The alternative is that sleep is state of “adaptive inactivity”. It’s a way of saving energy when it’s not needed. Animals that sleep for longer are those that can afford to. That is the hypothesis that Lesku has tested and confirmed, at least in the sandpipers.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/08/09/sandpipers-forgo-sleep-for-days-because-there%E2%80%99s-too-much-sex-to-be-had/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NotRocketScience+%28Not+Exactly+Rocket+Science%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
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