Sex-specific aging: sex differences in survival and health in a wild primate population

这个项目背后的激励问题是人类在生存和健康方面面临的明显悖论。尽管男性看起来更健康，特别是在老年，但他们一生中都处于生存劣势。一些证据表明，这一悖论可能在其他哺乳动物身上也有相似之处。针对性别的选择压力可能导致了针对性别的战略，将资源分配给健康的不同组成部分。为了评估这一观点，我们将调查野生灵长类种群在人口统计学和生理老龄化方面的性别差异。灰鼠狐猴(Microcebus Murinus)是衰老研究中公认的实验室模型，其相当短的寿命(对于灵长类动物)允许进行横断面和纵向研究。我们将估计不同年龄段存活率中的性别差异，并量化不同性别行为的贡献。此外，我们还将检验这一假设，即女性表现出更强的免疫能力，但男性在整个生命周期中保持更高的功能。为此，我们将构建寄生虫载量的年龄轨迹，这可能是免疫活性的关联，并对两性起作用。除了揭示健康-生存悖论背后的可能机制外，这项研究还将提供关于野生灵长类动物衰老的罕见信息。

The motivating problem behind this project is the apparent paradox that humans face in survival and health. Despite their seemingly better health, especially at older ages, men suffer a survival disadvantage throughout life. Some evidence suggests that this paradox might have close parallels in other mammals. Sex-specific selection pressures may have led to sex-specific strategies in the allocation of resources to different components of health. To evaluate this idea, we will investigate sex differences in demographic and physiological aging in a wild primate population. The grey mouse lemur, Microcebus murinus, is a well established laboratory model in aging research and its rather short life span (for a primate) allows cross-sectional as well as longitudinal studies. We will estimate sex differences in age-specific survival and quantify the contribution of sex-specific behaviours. In addition, we will test the hypothesis that females exhibit greater immunocompetence, but males retain higher functioning over the lifespan. To this end, we will construct age-trajectories of parasite load, a likely correlate of immunocompetence, and functioning for both sexes. Apart from shedding light on a putative mechanism behind the health-survival paradox, this study will also provide rare information on aging in a wild primate.