"Plant Metabolism and Circadian Rhythms,
While all plants need sunlight in some capacity to survive, they have metabolic processes that continue in darkness. One example of a light-independent process is the Calvin cycle, whereby carbon is captured and converted into stored energy using energy that is stored from other photosynthetic reactions during the day. Another is respiration, where oxygen is combined with stored food to make it usable. Plants usually produce oxygen during the day due to photosynthetic reactions and use oxygen at night due to respiration.
Owing to their internal circadian rhythms, while it's dark, plants anticipate the coming of dawn and prepare for it on a cellular level before their chloroplasts are stimulated by light.
In short, darkness plays a significant role in plant growth, influencing chloroplast distribution, leaf shape, growth patterns and the duration of daily cycles..."
Not only this, but plants produce auxin durring their "rest" period (auxin is a crucial plant growth hormone)
Yes autos can be flowered on 24/0 and yes you can give them a rest period if you like, will it increase your yield, well idk but i do know that rest is important to the growth and developement of a plant and here is the link to the article from the quoted information above,
Since the vast majority of plants depend on light to grow, they cannot live in complete darkness. The cycles and lengths of the day, however, play an important role in plant growth.
sciencing.com
Dr. Elaine Ingham also has some really good podcasts and youtube videos about what is metobolically going on in a plant when its resting, she explains the auxin hormone better then i ever am going to try to lol and she also has tpns of other really useful knowledgeable videos and podcasts on soil and plant biology and the relationships they share, really good material for anyone growing in soil and or growing period, she is very knowledgeable about plant nutrition and feeding strategies that can be directly applied to cannabis growing as well as many different methods and practices in regards to feeding soil and timing nutrients in the medium.