Waking Up to a Crisis: Climate Change Disrupts Animal Sleep Patterns

As lead author Lee notes in the paper, "Sleep is a universal behavior across animals, critical for physiological homeostasis, cognitive function, and development." While animals have historically shown remarkable adaptive capacities to environmental shifts over evolutionary timescales, the current era of rapid climate change presents an unprecedented challenge. This accelerating change, characterized by rising global temperatures, unpredictable precipitation patterns, and an increase in extreme weather events, directly threatens the finely tuned sleep patterns that animals have developed within their specific ecological niches.

Despite the profound importance of sleep to animal well-being and survival, the potential for climate change to disrupt these essential behaviors remains largely under-considered in ecological and conservation discourse. Our analysis highlights how these climate-driven disruptions manifest across diverse biogeographical zones, including polar, tropical, dry, and marine and coastal regions, each facing unique vulnerabilities.

The consequences of widespread sleep disruption extend far beyond individual animal health, potentially triggering significant cascading effects throughout ecosystems. Impaired sleep can weaken species interactions, alter population dynamics, and ultimately degrade overall ecosystem functioning. Recognizing this critical oversight, we emphasize the urgent need for more robust, long-term ecological studies, alongside advancements in technologies capable of measuring sleep in free-living animals. Integrating sleep ecology into broader conservation strategies is paramount to understanding and mitigating these evolving threats. Future research must also prioritize assessing the variability of sleep needs, the fitness costs associated with sleep loss, and the potential for animals to adapt evolutionarily to these new environmental pressures.