Elevated sleep quota in a stress-resilient Drosophila species

Sleep is broadly conserved across the animal kingdom but can vary widely between species. It is currently unclear which selective pressures and regulatory mechanisms influence differences in sleep between species. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has become a successful model system for examining sleep regulation and function, but little is known about the sleep patterns in many related fly species. Here, we find that fly species with adaptations to extreme desert environments, including D. mojavensis, exhibit strong increases in baseline sleep compared with D. melanogaster. Long-sleeping D. mojavensis show intact homeostasis, indicating that desert flies carry an elevated drive for sleep. In addition, D. mojavensis exhibit altered abundance or distribution of several sleep/wake-related neuromodulators and neuropeptides that are consistent with their reduced locomotor activity and increased sleep. Finally, we find that in a nutrient-deprived environment, the sleep patterns of individual D. mojavensis are strongly correlated with their survival time and that disrupting sleep via constant light stimulation renders D. mojavensis more sensitive to starvation. Our results demonstrate that D. mojavensis is a novel model for studying organisms with high sleep drive and for exploring sleep strategies that provide resilience in extreme environments.