[Allozyme heterozygosity, sexual maturation rate, and longevity].

Humans, animals, and plants are shown to have a universal polygenic system maintained by stabilizing selection, which underlies highly significant correlations between multilocus allozyme heterozygosity, the sexual maturation rate, and longevity. For 77 animal and 30 plant species, it was demonstrated that allozyme genomic heterozygosity (1) is positively correlated with rate of sexual maturity (2) (r12 = 0.815, P < 0.001) and negatively correlated with longevity; (3) (r13 = -0.793, P < 0.001). These relationships are significantly affected by the genotype-environment interactions that modify the structure of the metabolism related to growth and development. An increase in the number of heterotic genes involved in growth and development increases the energy expenditure in this ontogenetic period, accelerates the sexual maturation rate, and shortens the life span.