Møller A P
Laboratoire de Parasitologie Evolutive, CNRS UMR 7103, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Cedex, France.
J Evol Biol. 2006 May;19(3):682-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2005.01065.x.
Evolutionary theories of senescence suggest that aging evolves as a consequence of early reproduction imposing later viability costs, or as a consequence of weak selection against mutations that act late in life. In addition, highly social species that live in sites that are protected from extrinsic mortality due to predation should senesce at a slower rate than solitary species. Therefore, species that start reproducing late in life should senesce at a slower rate than species that start reproducing early. In addition, social species should senesce more slowly than solitary species. Here I investigate the rate of senescence using an extensive data set on longevity records under natural field conditions to test predictions about the evolution of senescence among 271 species of birds. Longevity records increased with sampling effort and body mass, but once these confounding variables were controlled statistically, there was a strongly positive relationship between relative longevity and relative adult survival rate. Relative longevity after controlling statistically for sampling effort, body mass and adult survival rate, increased with age at first reproduction, but not with degree of breeding sociality. These findings suggest that the evolution of senescence is related to timing of first reproduction, but that the evolution of breeding sociality has played a negligible role in the evolution of senescence.
衰老的进化理论表明，衰老的进化是早期繁殖带来后期生存成本的结果，或者是对生命后期起作用的突变选择较弱的结果。此外，生活在受保护地点免受捕食等外在死亡因素影响的高度社会性物种，其衰老速度应比独居物种慢。因此，生命后期开始繁殖的物种，其衰老速度应比早期开始繁殖的物种慢。此外，社会性物种的衰老速度应比独居物种更慢。在此，我利用关于自然野外条件下长寿记录的大量数据集来研究衰老速度，以检验关于271种鸟类衰老进化的预测。长寿记录随采样工作量和体重增加，但一旦对这些混杂变量进行统计控制，相对寿命与相对成年存活率之间存在强正相关关系。在对采样工作量、体重和成年存活率进行统计控制后，相对寿命随首次繁殖年龄增加，但与繁殖社会性程度无关。这些发现表明，衰老的进化与首次繁殖的时间有关，但繁殖社会性的进化在衰老的进化中所起的作用微不足道。
