Aging in the Natural World: Comparative Data Reveal Similar Mortality Patterns Across Primates
- 11 March 2011
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 331 (6022), 1325-1328
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1201571
Abstract
Human senescence patterns—late onset of mortality increase, slow mortality acceleration, and exceptional longevity—are often described as unique in the animal world. Using an individual-based data set from longitudinal studies of wild populations of seven primate species, we show that contrary to assumptions of human uniqueness, human senescence falls within the primate continuum of aging; the tendency for males to have shorter life spans and higher age-specific mortality than females throughout much of adulthood is a common feature in many, but not all, primates; and the aging profiles of primate species do not reflect phylogenetic position. These findings suggest that mortality patterns in primates are shaped by local selective forces rather than phylogenetic history.Keywords
This publication has 31 references indexed in Scilit:
- Low Demographic Variability in Wild Primate Populations: Fitness Impacts of Variation, Covariation, and Serial Correlation in Vital RatesThe American Naturalist, 2011
- Remeasuring AgingScience, 2010
- Life-history connections to rates of aging in terrestrial vertebratesProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010
- The Primate Life History Database: a unique shared ecological data resourceMethods in Ecology and Evolution, 2010
- Caloric Restriction Delays Disease Onset and Mortality in Rhesus MonkeysScience, 2009
- Mortality and fertility rates in humans and chimpanzees: How within‐species variation complicates cross‐species comparisonsAmerican Journal of Human Biology, 2009
- Sex differences in ageing in natural populations of vertebratesProceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2007
- Testing evolutionary theories of aging in wild populationsTrends in Ecology & Evolution, 2005
- Model fitting and hypothesis testing for age-specific mortality dataJournal of Evolutionary Biology, 1999
- Sexual Dimorphism, the Operational Sex Ratio, and the Intensity of Male Competition in Polygynous PrimatesThe American Naturalist, 1996