Divergent evolution of sleep functions

Abstract

Most living organisms have evolved to synchronize their biological activities with the earth’s rotation, a daily regulation of biology and behaviour controlled by an evolutionary conserved molecular machinery known as the circadian clock. For most animals, circadian mechanisms are meant to maximize their exposure to positive activities (e.g.: social interactions, mating, feeding – generally during the day) and minimize their exposure to peril (e.g.: predation, weather, darkness – generally during the night¹). On top of circadian regulation, some behaviours also feature a second layer of homeostatic control acting as a fail-safe to ensure important activities are not ignored. Sleep is one of these behaviours: largely controlled by the circadian clock for its baseline appearance, it is at the same time modulated by a – poorly understood – homeostatic regulator ensuring animals obey their species-specific amount of daily sleep². An evolutionary conserved homeostatic control is often considered the main evidence for a core biological function of sleep beyond the trivial one (that is: keeping us out of trouble by limiting our energy expenditure and exposure to danger^3,4) and it is hypothesized that sleep evolved around this mysterious basic biological function. Here we characterize sleep regulation in a group of seven species of the Drosophila genus at key evolutionary distances and representing a variety of ecological niche adaptations. We show that the spontaneous circadian-driven aspects of sleep are conserved among all species but the homeostatic regulation, unexpectedly, is not. We uncover differences in the behavioural, cell-biological and neuro-pharmacological aspects of sleep and suggest that, in Drosophilids, sleep primarily evolved to satisfy a circadian role, keeping animals immobile during dangerous hours of the day. The homeostatic functions of sleep evolved independently, in a species-specific fashion, and are not conserved.