"Working down" conserves battery power, as the other answers suggest. But it is also better for endurance to descend, simply because the flight Reynolds number will be higher, and the viscous drag lower.
See this answer for an explanation how the physics behind this works.
See this answer for the Reynolds number effect on a glider. Here the same aircraft is plotted at the same altitude, but with different wing loadings, so all typical speeds increase with wing loading, and so does the Reynolds number. You will see that L/D slightly increases with Reynolds number.
Also, the optimum polar point for minimum energy loss of propeller-driven aircraft is at a high lift coefficient $c_{L_{opt}}$, and this lift coefficient goes up with the wing's aspect ratio $AR$.
$$c_{L_{opt}}=\sqrt{3\cdot c_{D0}\cdot\pi\cdot AR}$$
At an aspect ratio of 20, this might be close to the airfoil's maximum lift coefficient, so flying slowly runs the risk of flying close to stall. Since the maximum lift coefficient goes up with the Reynolds number (after all, the viscous effects diminish and flow separation will be delayed), flying at a low altitude allows to make flying at the optimum polar point for minimum energy loss more safe or even possible.