Projects per year
Abstract
Males and females rarely express the same length of life. Here, we studied how sociosexual exposure shapes male and female age-specific mortality rates in Drosophila melanogaster. We maintained focal females and males within large, replicated cohorts throughout life with individuals of the same or opposite sex. Consistent with previous works, we found that females kept throughout their lives with males had only half the lifespan of those maintained throughout life at the same density in same-sex cohorts. In contrast, only a small lifespan decrease was observed in the corresponding male treatments and the reduction in male lifespan following exposure throughout life to other males or females was similar. Deconvolution of underlying aging parameters revealed that changes in lifespan were underpinned by opposing effects on actuarial aging in males versus females. Exposure to the opposite or same sex increased initial mortality rate in both sexes. However, in females, increasing exposure to males increased the rate of aging, while increasing exposure to females actually decreased it. The effects were in the opposite direction in males and were much smaller in magnitude. Overall, the findings were consistent with reports suggesting that exposure to the same versus opposite sex can affect survival differently in males and females. However, they also reveal a new insight—that overall lifespan can be underpinned by key differences in actuarial senescence in each sex. The findings suggest that responses to same or opposite sex exposure may have fundamentally and qualitatively different physiological consequences for health in males and females.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2230-2239 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journals of Gerontology - Series A Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences |
Volume | 78 |
Issue number | 12 |
Early online date | 11 Sep 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2023 |
Keywords
- Lifespan
- Mortality
- Reproductive costs
Projects
- 2 Finished
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Poor starts and silver spoons: how diet shapes sex-specific fitness from birth to death.
Chapman, T., Maklakov, A. & Rostant, W.
Natural Environment Research Council
1/04/18 → 31/03/21
Project: Research
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All's Fair When Love is War: The Evolution of Lifespan and Ageing Under Sexual Conflict
Chapman, T., Dalmay, T., Mohorianu, I. & Barber, K.
Natural Environment Research Council
1/02/13 → 31/12/16
Project: Research