Section of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Dec 28;107(52):22705-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1009439108. Epub 2010 Dec 14.
Sleep is essential for basic survival, and insufficient sleep leads to a variety of dysfunctions. In humans, one of the most profound consequences of sleep deprivation is imprecise or irrational communication, demonstrated by degradation in signaling as well as in receiving information. Communication in nonhuman animals may suffer analogous degradation of precision, perhaps with especially damaging consequences for social animals. However, society-specific consequences of sleep loss have rarely been explored, and no function of sleep has been ascribed to a truly social (eusocial) organism in the context of its society. Here we show that sleep-deprived honey bees (Apis mellifera) exhibit reduced precision when signaling direction information to food sources in their waggle dances. The deterioration of the honey bee's ability to communicate is expected to reduce the foraging efficiency of nestmates. This study demonstrates the impact of sleep deprivation on signaling in a eusocial animal. If the deterioration of signals made by sleep-deprived honey bees and humans is generalizable, then imprecise communication may be one detrimental effect of sleep loss shared by social organisms.
睡眠对于基本生存至关重要，而睡眠不足会导致各种功能障碍。在人类中，睡眠剥夺最严重的后果之一是不准确或不合理的沟通，表现为信号传递和信息接收方面的退化。非人类动物的交流可能也会出现类似的精度降低，对于社交动物来说，可能会产生特别严重的后果。然而，睡眠剥夺对社会动物的具体影响很少被探索，而且在其社会背景下，还没有将睡眠的任何功能归因于真正的社会性（真社会性）生物。在这里，我们发现，在它们的摇摆舞中向食物源发出方向信息时，睡眠不足的蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）表现出信号精度降低。蜜蜂传达信息能力的恶化预计会降低巢内同伴的觅食效率。这项研究证明了睡眠剥夺对真社会性动物信号传递的影响。如果睡眠不足的蜜蜂和人类发出的信号恶化具有普遍性，那么不准确的沟通可能是社交生物共有的睡眠不足的一种有害影响。
