The biodemography of life span

描述(由申请人提供)：该项目将利用实验技术、生物学系统、人口统计学概念、统计学方法和理论模型来研究人类和非人类模型系统中有关寿命决定因素的问题，包括脊椎动物(哺乳动物、鸟类的比较人口学)和无脊椎动物(果蝇、线虫、蜜蜂)。组成该计划的五个研究项目围绕以下交叉主题进行组织：(1)寿命是适应的，并由自然塑造；(2)个体在野外年龄；(3)社会性和寿命是相互影响的；(4)最高层次原则为动物寿命的变化提供了包容的顺序。该计划将为蜜蜂、野生蜻蜓和线虫生成新的大规模人口数据库和数十个脊椎动物物种的生活史数据，引入新的统计模型来分析模式物种的人口数据，开发研究野生衰老的新方法，更全面地发展生物人口学的数学基础，生成与代际转移和社会性在寿命进化中的作用有关的新模型和理论，探索与随机环境对进化寿命和风险的影响有关的问题，并使用比较人口学来确定关于寿命进化的一般原理。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This program will bring experimental techniques, biological systems, demographic concepts, statistical methods, and theoretical models to bear on questions concerning the determinants of life span in both humans and in non-human model systems including both vertebrates (comparative demography of mammals; birds) and invertebrates (fruit flies; nematodes; honey bees). The five research projects that form the program are organized around the following crosscutting themes: (1) Life span is adaptive and shaped by nature; (2) Individuals age in the wild; (3) Sociality and life span are mutually affecting; and (4) Superarching principles provide all embracing order to variation in animal life spans. The program will generate new large-scale demographic databases for the honey bee, wild medflies, and C. elegans and life history data from the literature on several dozen vertebrate species, introduce new statistical models for analysis of demographic data on model species, develop a novel methodology for studying aging in the wild, develop more fully the mathematical foundations of biodemography, generate new models and theories concerned with the role of intergenerational transfer and sociality in the evolution of life span, explore questions concerned with the effects of stochastic environments on the evolution life span and hazard rates, and use comparative demography to identify general principles concerning life span evolution.