ArticlePLoS computational biology2013
Mate choice and the origin of menopause.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genome-Wide Temporal Gene Expression Reveals a Post-Reproductive Shift in the Nematode Caenorhabditis briggsae.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
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- Origin of Sex-Biased Mental Disorders: Do Males and Females Experience Different Selective Regimes?Journal of molecular evolution · 2022Article
- The neural correlates of grandmaternal caregiving.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Origin of Sex-Biased Mental Disorders: An Evolutionary Perspective.Journal of molecular evolution · 2021Review
- On age-specific selection and extensive lifespan beyond menopause.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Is menopause still evolving? Evidence from a longitudinal study of multiethnic populations and its relevance to women's health.BMC women's health · 2020Article
- Mate Choice and the Persistence of Maternal Mortality.Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) · 2019Review
- A Theory for the Origin of Human Menopause.Frontiers in genetics · 2016Article
- Article
- Cost of mate choice: Changing patterns of global age disparity in marriage and their consequences to women's health including maternal mortality and menopause.Women's health (London, England)Article
- Blood cell telomere lengths and shortening rates of chimpanzee and human females.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology CouncilArticle
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Human menopause is an unsolved evolutionary puzzle, and relationships among the factors that produced it remain understood poorly. Classic theory, involving a one-sex (female) model of human demography, suggests that genes imparting deleterious effects on post-reproductive survival will accumulate. Thus, a 'death barrier' should emerge beyond the maximum age for female reproduction. Under this scenario, few women would experience menopause (decreased fertility with continued survival) because few would survive much longer than they reproduced. However, no death barrier is observed in human populations. Subsequent theoretical research has shown that two-sex models, including male fertility at older ages, avoid the death barrier. Here we use a stochastic, two-sex computational model implemented by computer simulation to show how male mating preference for younger females could lead to the accumulation of mutations deleterious to female fertility and thus produce a menopausal period. Our model requires neither the initial assumption of a decline in older female fertility nor the effects of inclusive fitness through which older, non-reproducing women assist in the reproductive efforts of younger women. Our model helps to explain why such effects, observed in many societies, may be insufficient factors in elucidating the origin of menopause.
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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.