Data gathering is a common but a critical operation in many applications of wireless sensor networks. So, innovative techniques that improve energy efficiency to prolong the network lifetime are highly required. In this research, we analyze the reduction of energy consumption in wireless sensor networks. A sensor network consists of a large number of limited-energy sensor nodes, which are widely distributed in an environment that sense and collect the environmental information. In most applications of wireless sensor networks, there is no possibility of charging node batteries. In these types of networks, the most important challenge is the power constraint that directly affects the lifetime of the sensor network. Protocols designed in these networks should be accompanied by efficient energy consumption. The LEACH protocol is one of the well-known protocols that are widely used in this field. In this study, we use genetic algorithm and fuzzy clustering for improving the LEACH protocol. Our results show that the proposed algorithm has needs energy consumption in comparison with the original version. This leads to a prolonged network lifetime, which is one of the most important issues in wireless sensor networks. Manuscript profile