LAUSR

Environmental variables have a major influence on the sleep patterns of animals, and can be presumed to have a strong role in the evolutionary paths of sleep in humans. Despite this understanding, only a few primate species have been systematically studied in their natural habitat, with research lacking on sleep characteristics in wild primates. Because of the difficulties of measuring sleep in the wild, primatology has largely focused on sleep through measurements of activity patterns, sleep ecology and habitat, which are assumed to reflect sleep patterns. I propose that advances in non-invasive technologies provide new opportunities for expanding sleep research in wild settings, and that well-known phenotypic variability in sleep across species represents an adaptation to the environment. The most important advances needed to understand the evolutionary pathways of sleep include wild comparisons to those already conducted in captivity, as well as examining sleep homeostasis in the wild.