Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SLEEPCHANGE (The ecophysiology of sleep under global change)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-09-01 al 2025-08-31
Sleep is essential for all animals, but little is known about how it changes in response to the environment—especially in reptiles and amphibians. The SLEEPCHANGE project set out to explore how these animals’ sleep patterns are affected by global challenges such as urbanization and biological invasions (when species are spread beyond their natural range to new areas by humans). Using new, tiny sleep-tracking devices, the project aims to uncover how different environmental pressures—like city lights or new habitats—alter how much and how well animals sleep. By combining research from ecology, neuroscience, and physiology, SLEEPCHANGE hopes to reveal how the natural world shapes sleep and how animals may adapt as their environments change. The project focused on four main research goals. First, it explored the impact of urbanization, focusing on Indian rock agamas and South African chameleons to understand how city life, artificial night light, and habitat changes affect sleep patterns, physiology, and behavior. Second, the project examined how short-term environmental changes, such as the spread of invasive species, might alter sleep—for example, whether animals moving into new territories sleep less. Third, the project assessed whether changes in sleep are caused by heritable genetic differences, using parent and offspring frogs in controlled settings. Finally, it looked at how sleep responds to long-term changes, such as lower or higher predation risk, by studying lizards and frogs. Together, these studies offer new insights into how animals sleep and adapt in a rapidly changing world.
Sleep in wild-caught Peninsular rock agama lizards from urban and rural (with limited disturbance) populations was recorded using miniature devices to test how urban life alters sleep. Preliminary results indicate that under laboratory conditions, urban individuals sleep similarly to rural individuals, but have shorter duration of daytime sleep episodes. Then in lizards under naturalistic conditions, the impact of artificial light at night was tested on lizard sleep quality, stress, and performance. We also tested how prolonged exposure to simulated predators influenced sleep, activity, energy use, and stress. In South African dwarf chameleons, data were analysed to understand how urban life affects their habitat use, physical abilities, and body structure. In African clawed frog, we compared frogs from native and invasive regions to study long-term ecological effects of altered predation risk on sleep. Data from these studies are currently being analysed.
The project examined non-model taxa in sleep research (lizards and frogs) using a comprehensive combination of behaviour, ecology, and electrophysiology. Notably, we successfully utilized miniature loggers to quantify sleep duration and distribution in small vertebrates at a large scale, under ecologically-relevant settings. The action will result in 6 scientific publications, which will expand current understanding of how sleep changes within a species in response to varying environmental conditions.
The project examined non-model taxa in sleep research (lizards and frogs) using a comprehensive combination of behaviour, ecology, and electrophysiology. Notably, we successfully utilized miniature loggers to quantify sleep duration and distribution in small vertebrates at a large scale, under ecologically-relevant settings. The action will result in 6 scientific publications, which will expand current understanding of how sleep changes within a species in response to varying environmental conditions.
SLEEPCHANGE helped the researcher gain valuable skillsets in sleep ecophysiology, conduct novel experiments, and co-mentor three students; this professional experience would establish the researcher as a key contributor on reptile and amphibian sleep, in this emerging field of research. The project also supported the formation of an international research network for future breakthroughs in the study of sleep and animal behaviour.