How Some Plants And Animals Appear To Defy The Aging Process

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How

Some Plants And Animals Appear To Defy The Aging Process

 

 

 

 

ScienceDaily (Jan. 17, 2008) — The inevitability of

the aging process and the onset of senescence - the process of deterioration

with age - is a fact of life for most plant and animal species.

Some,

however, live to extreme ages, such as the English yew, of which at least one

alive today is recorded in the Domesday Book; while a few organisms seem to

defy current evolutionary understanding altogether, by appearing to have

indefinite generation lengths with negligible senescence. For example, the

Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine is known to produce viable cones at over 4000

years of age.

New

research by ecologist Dr Patrick Doncaster from the University of Southampton,

and mathematician Professor Robert Seymour from University College London

demonstrates the principle by which some organisms can indefinitely postpone

the onset of senescent aging.

'Our

analysis indicates that sedentary organisms, including some types of tree, are

particularly likely to achieve this postponement of the onset of senescent

aging,' comments Dr Doncaster. 'It evolves through many generations of

ancestors " crowding out " young individuals of the same species that

attempt to grow to adulthood alongside them.'

He

continues: 'The inevitability of senescence amongst organisms with repeated

reproduction has well-developed theoretical foundations. In essence, since

reproduction carries physiological costs, natural selection favors reaping

early benefits, and delaying the cost in physiological decline until later in

life when there is a greater chance of being dead anyway from environmental

hazards.

'But

some organisms show negligible senescence and a few, such as Hydra, which is a

very simple freshwater animal, and the Bristlecone Pine, appear to have

indefinite generation lengths. We have now answered the question of how they

could have evolved from ancestors with senescent life histories. Mathematical

analysis shows that the crowding out of young individuals favors selection on ever-reducing

senescence. Our computer simulations indicate that this runaway process could

even lead to immortality.'

The

research paper 'Density Dependence Triggers Runaway Selection of Reduced

Senescence' is published in PLoS Computational Biology.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Southampton.

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