To prove it, Barret Klein used a magnetic device dubbed the Insominator that prevents bees from sleeping. "When humans are sleep deprived, they reduce their ability to perform tasks such as communicating clearly and precisely," explains study author Barret Klein. "Our experiments show that insomniac bees also experience communication problems ." Specifically, Klein has found that after many hours of wakefulness it is difficult for a bee to indicate the exact direction of a place where there is food. And that makes the colony less competitive .
? Although the importance of sleep had been studied in Drosophila flies for years, Barrett's study is the first to address the role of sleep in social insects in group context, and the first to show that insect communication loses precision if they are deprived of sleep hours ?, adds biologist Ulrich Mueller, co-author of the study, which was published this week in the journal PNAS .
