PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #34: Animal Ecology: Behavior and Sociobiology.
Presiding: S. Richards
Tuesday, August 6. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Grand Ballroom East, Radisson.
Quiescent paper wasps.
Klein, Barrett*,1, 1 University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
ABSTRACT- Sleep is a behavior and a condition popularly deemed essential to the health of many animals, in spite of its inexplicability in all levels of analysis. Sleep has been defined primarily using patterns of neural firing in the brain, restricting its primary means of study to a vast majority of the major vertebrate taxa. This leaves the greatest diversity of animals—the invertebrates—with behavioral and physiological studies exclusive of such brainwave activity. Four species of Polistes paper wasps, primarily Polistes flavus, were studied to determine whether or not they can be said to sleep. This determination relied on sleep signs, or behavioral and physiological criteria associated with sleep, as described in the literature. Experiments involving arousal thresholds, thermal analysis, activity-based metabolism, and sleep deprivation were conducted.
KEY WORDS: Polistes, paper wasps, sleep, quiescence