ReviewAgeing research reviews2013
Senescence in natural populations of animals: widespread evidence and its implications for bio-gerontology.
Review in Ageing research reviews, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 218 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
218 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Meta-analysis shows no consistent evidence for senescence in ejaculate traits across animals.Nature communications · 2024Pooled it
- Early-life stress reduces senescence in the field for an indeterminately growing ectotherm.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Asynchrony of ageing among traits in a wild bird population.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Does energy minimisation constrain behavioural plasticity? Long-term activity budgets of a model folivore-frugivore.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Article
- Statistical Models Validate Environmental Stability, Body Size and Life History Strategies as Predictors of Maximum Lifespan.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Non-Invasive Measures of DNA Methylation Capture Molecular Aging in Wild Capuchin Monkeys.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- An Extracellular Matrix Aging Clock Based on Circulating Matrisome Proteins Predicts Biological Aging and Disease.Aging cell · 2026Article
- Molecular evolution of animal aging.The EMBO journal · 2026Review
- Epigenetic Signatures of Ageing in Asian Elephants Revealed by Reduced Representation Bisulphite Sequencing.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Selection for Function in Early Life: Implications for Early-Onset Pathologies.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Why we age.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Environmental Variability Shapes Life-History Trade-Offs Within and Between Populations of a Long-Lived Seabird.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Genome-Wide DNA Methylation Patterns Predict Age in the Zebra Shark (Stegostoma tigrinum) and Provide Insight Into the Evolution of Vertebrate Aging.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Sources of Pre- and Postnatal Maternal Energy Allocation to Offspring in a Long-Lived, Capital Breeder: The Grey Seal (Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Reproductive aging and age-dependent parental effects on offspring in a long-lived seabird.Oecologia · 2026Article
- Life-history trade-offs and environmental variability shape reproductive demography in a mountain ungulate.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Social bonds decrease epigenetic age in male bottlenose dolphins.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Feeding performance, kinematics and skills change with age in a granivorous songbird.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Migration shapes senescence in a long-lived bird.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Unlocking longevity through the comparative biology of aging.Nature aging · 2025Review
158 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
That senescence is rarely, if ever, observed in natural populations is an oft-quoted fallacy within bio-gerontology. We identify the roots of this fallacy in the otherwise seminal works of Medawar and Comfort, and explain that under antagonistic pleiotropy or disposable soma explanations for the evolution of senescence there is no reason why senescence cannot evolve to be manifest within the life expectancies of wild organisms. The recent emergence of long-term field studies presents irrefutable evidence that senescence is commonly detected in nature. We found such evidence in 175 different animal species from 340 separate studies. Although the bulk of this evidence comes from birds and mammals, we also found evidence for senescence in other vertebrates and insects. We describe how high-quality longitudinal field data allow us to test evolutionary explanations for differences in senescence between the sexes and among traits and individuals. Recent studies indicate that genes, prior environment and investment in growth and reproduction influence aging rates in the wild. We argue that - with the fallacy that wild animals do not senesce finally dead and buried - collaborations between bio-gerontologists and field biologists can begin to test the ecological generality of purportedly 'public' mechanisms regulating aging in laboratory models.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.