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posted 22. April 2006 11:36
Source: Oxford University News
Swan study shows reproductive success in early life leads to faster ageing
21 April 2006
Paragraphs 3 and 4:
The team, from the Edward Grey Institute in Oxford’s Department of Zoology, investigated data on swans that bred as youngsters and those that started to reproduce at a much later age. They discovered the age at which swans started to reproduce varied considerably – from two to twelve years old – and the age at which swans stopped breeding also showed huge variation – from two to twenty years old. The main finding, however, was that the birds that started breeding at an early age stopped reproducing earlier than the late-starters.
The study, to be published in the science journal PNAS this week, supports the ‘antagonistic pleiotropy’ theory for the evolution of ageing, that says that you ‘pay’ in later life for your success in reproducing when young. It is thought the study is the first to show this pattern in a wild animal population.
[ISCID News Editor:
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Skin going leathery - yep...]
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