Evolution of an Adaptive Sleep Response in Digital Organisms

Adaptive responses to resource availability are common in natural systems. In this paper we explore one possible evolutionary cause of adaptive sleep/wake behavior. We subjected populations of digital organisms to an environment with a slowly diminishing resource and recorded their ability to adapt to the changing environment using sleep. We also quantified the selective pressure not to sleep in this competitive environment.We observed that diminishing resource availability can promote adaptive sleep responses in digital organisms even when there is an opportunity cost associated with sleeping.