Collaborative Research: Evolution and Ecology of Aging in Natural Populations of Long-Lived Vertebrates

合作研究：长寿脊椎动物自然种群的衰老进化和生态学

• 批准号: 0323784
• 负责人: Stevan Arnold
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Oregon State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-09-01 至 2006-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0323784&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Evolution; Ecology; Aging

Senescence is the increase in probability of death with advancing age. Commonly referred to as "aging", this increasing mortality with age is due to the deterioration of underlying physiological and biochemical processes. Different species of animals are wildly divergent in their lifespans and aging rates. To date, little is known of the evolutionary and ecological causes of such variation. By applying field studies, laboratory assays, and mathematical models to a well-documented natural system of snake populations that vary in aging rate, the causes of variation in aging and consequences for lifespan and health span will be learned. The answer to the question of how variation in aging rates is maintained in natural populations will aid in an understanding of the evolutionary history of aging in humans and other organisms and needs to be studied to develop a general theory of the evolution and persistence of aging that applies to all multicellular life. Through specifically targeting high school students and undergraduates of groups traditionally underrepresented in environmental biology, this research will directly support diversity in environmental biology and field ecology, as well as traditional laboratory experimentation. These studies on the mechanisms and prevalence of aging in nature, on an abundant and long-studied system, will yield insights into the relative importance of aging in population biology, the impacts of aging and age-structure on the population dynamics of imperiled species, and the aging process and changing age-structure of the human species.

衰老是随着年龄的增长死亡概率的增加。 这种死亡率随年龄增长而增加的现象通常被称为“衰老”，其原因是潜在的生理和生化过程恶化。 不同种类的动物在寿命和衰老速度上有很大差异。 到目前为止，很少有人知道这种变化的进化和生态原因。 通过将实地研究，实验室测定和数学模型应用于有据可查的老化率不同的蛇种群自然系统，将了解老化变化的原因以及寿命和健康寿命的后果。如何在自然种群中保持衰老率的变化这一问题的答案将有助于理解人类和其他生物体衰老的进化历史，需要进行研究，以发展适用于所有多细胞生命的衰老进化和持久性的一般理论。 通过专门针对高中生和大学生群体的传统上在环境生物学代表性不足，这项研究将直接支持环境生物学和野外生态学的多样性，以及传统的实验室实验。 这些关于自然界中老龄化机制和流行率的研究，在一个丰富和长期研究的系统中，将深入了解老龄化在人口生物学中的相对重要性，老龄化和年龄结构对濒危物种人口动态的影响，以及人类的老龄化过程和不断变化的年龄结构。