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Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight
Many birds fly non-stop for days or longer, but do they sleep in flight and if so, how? It is commonly assumed that flying birds maintain environmental awareness and aerodynamic control by sleeping with only one eye closed and one cerebral hemisphere at a time. However, sleep has never been demonstr...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4976198/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27485308 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12468 |
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author | Rattenborg, Niels C Voirin, Bryson Cruz, Sebastian M. Tisdale, Ryan Dell'Omo, Giacomo Lipp, Hans-Peter Wikelski, Martin Vyssotski, Alexei L. |
author_facet | Rattenborg, Niels C Voirin, Bryson Cruz, Sebastian M. Tisdale, Ryan Dell'Omo, Giacomo Lipp, Hans-Peter Wikelski, Martin Vyssotski, Alexei L. |
author_sort | Rattenborg, Niels C |
collection | PubMed |
description | Many birds fly non-stop for days or longer, but do they sleep in flight and if so, how? It is commonly assumed that flying birds maintain environmental awareness and aerodynamic control by sleeping with only one eye closed and one cerebral hemisphere at a time. However, sleep has never been demonstrated in flying birds. Here, using electroencephalogram recordings of great frigatebirds (Fregata minor) flying over the ocean for up to 10 days, we show that they can sleep with either one hemisphere at a time or both hemispheres simultaneously. Also unexpectedly, frigatebirds sleep for only 0.69 h d(−1) (7.4% of the time spent sleeping on land), indicating that ecological demands for attention usually exceed the attention afforded by sleeping unihemispherically. In addition to establishing that birds can sleep in flight, our results challenge the view that they sustain prolonged flights by obtaining normal amounts of sleep on the wing. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4976198 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-49761982016-08-19 Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight Rattenborg, Niels C Voirin, Bryson Cruz, Sebastian M. Tisdale, Ryan Dell'Omo, Giacomo Lipp, Hans-Peter Wikelski, Martin Vyssotski, Alexei L. Nat Commun Article Many birds fly non-stop for days or longer, but do they sleep in flight and if so, how? It is commonly assumed that flying birds maintain environmental awareness and aerodynamic control by sleeping with only one eye closed and one cerebral hemisphere at a time. However, sleep has never been demonstrated in flying birds. Here, using electroencephalogram recordings of great frigatebirds (Fregata minor) flying over the ocean for up to 10 days, we show that they can sleep with either one hemisphere at a time or both hemispheres simultaneously. Also unexpectedly, frigatebirds sleep for only 0.69 h d(−1) (7.4% of the time spent sleeping on land), indicating that ecological demands for attention usually exceed the attention afforded by sleeping unihemispherically. In addition to establishing that birds can sleep in flight, our results challenge the view that they sustain prolonged flights by obtaining normal amounts of sleep on the wing. Nature Publishing Group 2016-08-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4976198/ /pubmed/27485308 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12468 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Rattenborg, Niels C Voirin, Bryson Cruz, Sebastian M. Tisdale, Ryan Dell'Omo, Giacomo Lipp, Hans-Peter Wikelski, Martin Vyssotski, Alexei L. Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight |
title | Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight |
title_full | Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight |
title_fullStr | Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight |
title_full_unstemmed | Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight |
title_short | Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight |
title_sort | evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4976198/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27485308 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12468 |
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