Early-late life trade-offs and the evolution of ageing in the wild.

ABSTRACT: Empirical evidence for declines in fitness components (survival and reproductive performance) with age has recently accumulated in wild populations, highlighting that the process of senescence is nearly ubiquitous in the living world. Senescence patterns are highly variable among species and current evolutionary theories of ageing propose that such variation can be accounted for by differences in allocation to growth and reproduction during early life. Here, we compiled 26 studies of free-ranging vertebrate populations that explicitly tested for a trade-off between performance in early and late life. Our review brings overall support for the presence of early-late life trade-offs, suggesting that the limitation of available resources leads individuals to trade somatic maintenance later in

SUBMITTER: Lemaitre JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4426628 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature