[JumpCrisscross]

> Why is it not a survival advantage?

“All organisms occupy a niche, and the better adapted to that niche, the more ‘fit’ and the more likely that organism will reproduce, passing on the characteristics that fit that particular niche. While we may simplistically think of each organism occupying a single niche, realistically nearly all occupy at least two. Daytime and nighttime are different and distinct niches, creating an evolutionary push and pull that would make a perfect ‘fit’ impossible. Evolutionarily, being forced to evolve into two separate niches at the same time forces an organism to develop structures and functions that fit neither fully” [1].

We didn’t evolve for a world with artificial lighting.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7120898/

[makeitdouble]

The night niche doesn't require artificial lighting though.

Moonlight can be enough to have a decent understanding of one's surroundings, and then there's more than vision to navigate and be active. We wouldn't need a full species level evolution to be good at night life.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Moonlight can be enough to have a decent understanding of one's surroundings, and then there's more than vision to navigate and be active

Decent for us. Great for our predators and prey.

> We wouldn't need a full species level evolution to be good at night life.

The point of the article, which granted is a hypothesis, is that the adaptations it would take to be good at night would make us no more than good during the day. Nature has clearly selected against jack of all trades species.

[makeitdouble]

On the day/night balance, I was looking at cats as an example of a species that sleeps in smaller chunks and splits activity all around night and day.

Reading the article I thought there should be more weight given to behaviors different from sleep to adapt to the other niche, and also that being perfectly adapted to a niche doesn't sound like a benefit in the first place. My understanding is that most species have an evolution process slow enough that they never completely fit a niche but also have enough versatility to move around.

I'm thinking dogs, bears, crows, racoons, migratory birds etc. where adaptation happens, but not to a degree they can't move out from their niche.

[JumpCrisscross]

> I was looking at cats as an example of a species that sleeps in smaller chunks and splits activity all around night and day

Cats are crepuscular. The niche hypothesis predicts they'd sleep most of the day and night.

> not to a degree they can't move out from their niche

No animal I know of can't survive outside its time niche.