Journal
NATURE
Volume 505, Issue 7482, Pages 169-+Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/nature12789
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NIH [PO1 AG-031719]
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
- European Research Council [322989]
- ARC [DP110100727]
- Max Planck Society
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/G004854/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- NERC [NE/G004854/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Evolution drives, and is driven by, demography. A genotype moulds its phenotype's age patterns of mortality and fertility in an environment; these two patterns in turn determine the genotype's fitness in that environment. Hence, to understand the evolution of ageing, age patterns of mortality and reproduction need to be compared for species across the tree of life. However, few studies have done so and only for a limited range of taxa. Here we contrast standardized patterns over age for 11 mammals, 12 other vertebrates, 10 invertebrates, 12 vascular plants and a green alga. Although it has been predicted that evolution should inevitably lead to increasing mortality and declining fertility with age after maturity, there is great variation among these species, including increasing, constant, decreasing, humped and bowed trajectories for both long-and short-lived species. This diversity challenges theoreticians to develop broader perspectives on the evolution of ageing and empiricists to study the demography of more species.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available