Chimpanzee Reproductive and Physiological Aging

该项目将监测圈养雌性黑猩猩随年龄的生理变化，并将其与报告的雌性黑猩猩进行比较。比较包括卵泡计数、月经周期、端粒长度、肾上腺类固醇激素特征和肌肉力量。所有测量将是微创或死后测量(死亡后与本项目无关)。黑猩猩是现存的物种，在系统发育上最接近，在基因上与人类最相似。他们的生活史大致相似，但在关键细节上有所不同，特别是成年寿命的长短。自由放养的黑猩猩的成年死亡率很高，很少能活到40岁以上。它们被归类为仍在排卵的老年患者。另一方面，女性往往比她们的生育年龄多活几十年，并在更年期后保持活力。这种独特的人类寿命并不是人类近代史上的产物。尽管自19世纪末以来，西方国家的出生时预期寿命几乎翻了一番，但这一增长在很大程度上是由于婴儿和青少年死亡率的下降。历史人口以及部落和乐队社区的人口统计数据表明，预期寿命不到45岁；然而，这些人口中活到成年的女孩通常超过生育能力。三分之一或更多的成年女性已经过了生育年龄。关于黑猩猩生理衰老细节的全面数据对于解释这些差异和人类寿命进化过程至关重要。圈养雌性黑猩猩衰老表型的定量表征应该是当务之急。在野外对衰老生理进行系统测量是困难的，甚至是不可能的。圈养动物的饲养、住房和健康体验与野生动物不同，但医疗和社会记录可以用来评估圈养动物这些特征的影响。组织和记录档案允许在几十年内恢复一些措施，追踪个体在衰老轨迹上的异质性。随着12年前大多数圈养繁殖项目的暂停，预计下一批成虫的规模微乎其微。衡量那些正在步入成年期的人随年龄的变化将利用一个正在消失的机会来澄清和关注进化问题，也有助于成功地管理老化的俘虏本身。该项目涉及研究人员的合作，他们通常与人类或黑猩猩合作，但不是同时与人类或黑猩猩合作，因此它将促进准确描述这两个物种之间衰老模式的异同所需的协同效应。将强调学生的参与。为了接触到能够基于项目成果的多个受众，成果将发表在专门研究衰老、生育、灵长类动物和人类进化的期刊上。由于数据将被记录在相同的黑猩猩个体上，不同生理系统中的共同变异将有助于关于在女性身上产生类似变异的机制的假说。

This project will monitor physiological changes with age in captive female chimpanzees and compare them with those reported for women. Comparisons include ovarian follicle counts, menstrual cycle periodicity, telomere lengths, adrenal steroid characteristics, and muscle strength. All measurements will be minimally invasive or postmortem (following deaths unrelated to this project). Chimpanzees are the living species phylogenetically closest and most genetically like humans. Their life histories are broadly similar; yet differ in key details, notably the duration of adult life spans. Free-ranging chimpanzees experience high adult mortalities, and rarely live past the age of forty. They are categorized as old while still ovulating. Women on the other hand often live several decades beyond their fertile years and remain vigorous past menopause. This distinct human longevity is not an artifact of recent human history. Though life expectancy at birth has nearly doubled in Western countries since the end of the 19th Century, that increase is largely due to reductions in infant and juvenile mortality. Demographic data for historical populations and for tribal and band communities indicate life expectancies less than forty-five years; nevertheless girls in these populations who survived to adulthood usually outlived their fertility. A third or more of the adult women were past their childbearing years. Comprehensive data on the details of physiological aging in chimpanzees are crucial for an explanation of these differences and the processes involved in the evolution of human longevity.Quantitative characterization of the aging phenotypes of captive female chimpanzees should be an urgent priority. Systematic measurement of aging physiology is difficult or impossible in the wild. The rearing, housing, and health experience of captives differs from the wild, but medical and social records can be used to assess the effects of these features of captivity. Tissue and record archives allow some measures to be recovered over decades tracking individual heterogeneity in aging trajectories. With the suspension of most captive breeding programs a dozen years ago, the projected size of the next cohort of adults is miniscule. Measuring changes with age on those now moving through adulthood will exploit a disappearing opportunity to clarify and focus evolutionary questions, and also contribute to successful management of the aging captives themselves. The project involves the collaboration of researchers who normally work with either humans or chimpanzees but not both, so it will promote the synergies needed to accurately characterize the similarities and differences in aging patterns between these two species. Student involvement will be emphasized. In order to reach multiple audiences that can build on project findings, results will be published in journals devoted to research on aging, fertility, primatology, and human evolution. Since data will be recorded on the same individual chimpanzees, co-variation in various physiological systems will contribute to hypotheses about mechanisms that produce similar variation in women.