Collaborative Research: Senescence in Natural Populations

衰老是最深刻的生物现象之一。它可能在各个层面上影响动物的生物学；老龄化的有害方面提出了有趣的理论、实证、医学和社会问题。毫不奇怪，衰老已经成为研究的主要焦点。然而，大多数研究都集中在实验室近亲繁殖动物种群的衰老上，很少有研究试图确定结果是否适用于自然种群的动物。这项提议调查了自然种群中蜥蜴的衰老。休伊和邓纳姆将收集有关这些蜥蜴随着年龄增长而发生的生理和行为变化的信息。然后，他们将确定老年蜥蜴的性能下降是否会导致死亡风险增加。通过比较两个种群的衰老模式，他们还将检验一个关于衰老时间的进化假设。这将是首次对自然人口老龄化进行全面研究。这种多学科的方法将是一个有用的进步，并进一步了解衰老生物学。

Aging is among the most profound of biological phenomena. It potentially influences the biology of animals at all levels; and the deleterious aspects of aging raise intriguing theoretical, empirical, medical, and social problems. Not surprisingly, aging has become a major focus of research. However, most studies have focused on aging in laboratory stocks of inbred animals, and very few studies have attempted to determine whether the resulting findings apply to animals in natural populations. This proposal investigates aging in natural populations of lizards. Huey and Dunham will gather information on how the physiology and behavior of these lizards change as they grow old. Then they will determine whether declining performance of old lizards leads to increased risk of death. By comparing patterns of aging in two populations, they will also test an evolutionary hypothesis on the timing of aging. This will be the first comprehensive study of aging in any natural population. This multidisciplinary approach will be a useful advance and further a general understanding of the biology of aging.