Date of Award

2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

Second Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Rycyk, Athena

Area of Concentration

Animal Wellbeing and Conservation with Marine Biology

Abstract

Sleep is a fundamental part of life, not only for humans, but for countless species. Using behavioral criteria, sleep has been found to occur in species from a large range of phyla, including Mollusca. So far it has been found that one octopus species displays sleep behaviors, and one cuttlefish species fulfills multiple behavioral criteria for sleep. This study uses Sepia bandensis, the dwarf cuttlefish, to test a remaining criterion: an elevated arousal threshold that provides evidence of sleep behavior in cuttlefish. To test arousal threshold, the magnitude of stimuli required to evoke a response, when in and out of quiescence (a state of resting or inactivity), three increasing levels of stimulation, two increasing water vibration levels, and one physical touch level were applied on cuttlefish in quiescence and on cuttlefish in a wakeful state. Cuttlefish in a waking state responded to the first level of stimulation 70.37% of the time and responded to the second level 29.63% of the time (n=27). Cuttlefish in a resting state did not respond to the first level of stimulation, responded to the second level 18.52% of the time and responded to the third level of stimulation 81.48% of the time (n=27). The data provide evidence that dwarf cuttlefish have an elevated arousal threshold when in quiescence which supports the hypothesis that cuttlefish display sleep behavior.

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