The biodemography of life span

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目将引入实验技术、生物系统、人口统计学概念、统计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）。构成该计划的五个研究项目围绕以下交叉主题进行组织：(1)寿命是自适应的，由自然塑造的；(2)野外个体年龄；(3)社会性与寿命是相互影响的；(4)总体原则为动物寿命的变化提供了包罗万象的规律。该项目将为蜜蜂、野生蝇类和秀丽隐杆线虫建立新的大规模人口统计数据库，并从几十种脊椎动物的文献中获取生活史数据，为模型物种的人口统计数据分析引入新的统计模型，开发一种研究野生衰老的新方法，更全面地发展生物人口统计学的数学基础。产生关于代际转移和社会性在寿命进化中的作用的新模型和理论，探索有关随机环境对进化寿命和危害率的影响的问题，并使用比较人口学来确定有关寿命进化的一般原则。

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.