ArticleBehavioral ecology and sociobiology
The reproductive advantages of a long life: longevity and senescence in wild female African elephants.
Article in Behavioral ecology and sociobiology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 129 citations in OpenAlex.
- Knowledge transmission, culture and the consequences of social disruption in wild elephants.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Pooled it
- A population threshold for dedicated teaching.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Sources of Pre- and Postnatal Maternal Energy Allocation to Offspring in a Long-Lived, Capital Breeder: The Grey Seal (Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Natural regulation of population size in large mammals by means of two new delayed density-dependent fertility mechanisms.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- α-Synuclein Sequences from Long-Lived Animals Display Generally Diminished Aggregation Compared to Shorter-Lived Animals Including Humans.Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology · 2025Article
- Bridging the Gap: Using Wild African Elephant Metabolic, Reproductive, and Stress Hormone Profiles to Enhance Management in Human Care.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Reproductive Senescence in the Pollinator,Insects · 2025Article
- Do elephants really never forget? What we know about elephant memory and a call for further investigation.Learning & behavior · 2025Review
- Differences in Mother-Infant Bond and Social Behavior of African Elephant Calves Living In Situ and Ex Situ.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Stochasticity Explains Nongenetic Inheritance of Lifespan and Apparent Trade-Offs between Reproduction and Aging.Aging biology · 2023Article
- Alzheimer's disease-like neuropathology in three species of oceanic dolphin.The European journal of neuroscience · 2023Article
- Environmental Adaptation of Genetically Uniform Organisms with the Help of Epigenetic Mechanisms-An Insightful Perspective on Ecoepigenetics.Epigenomes · 2022Review
- Of Elephants and Other Mammals: A Comparative Review of Reproductive Tumors and Potential Impact on Conservation.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Review
- Orphaning stunts growth in wild African elephants.Conservation physiology · 2022Article
- Evolution of genetic networks for human creativity.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Review
- Palaeohistology reveals a slow pace of life for the dwarfed Sicilian elephant.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Epigenetic clock and methylation studies in elephants.Aging cell · 2021Article
- Nontraditional systems in aging research: an update.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2021Review
- Aging: What We Can Learn From Elephants.Frontiers in aging · 2021Review
- Understanding Reproductive Aging in Wildlife to Improve Animal Conservation and Human Reproductive Health.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Long-lived species such as elephants, whales and primates exhibit extended post-fertile survival compared to species with shorter lifespans but data on age-related fecundity and survival are limited to few species or populations. We assess relationships between longevity, reproductive onset, reproductive rate and age for 834 longitudinally monitored wild female African elephants in Amboseli, Kenya. The mean known age at first reproduction was 13.8 years; only 5 % commenced reproduction by 10 years. Early reproducers (<12.5 years) had higher age-specific fertility rates than did females who commenced reproduction late (15+ years) with no differences in survival between these groups. Age-specific reproductive rates of females dying before 40 years were reduced by comparison to same-aged survivors, illustrating a mortality filter and reproductive advantages of a long life. Overall, 95 % of fertility was completed before 50, and 95 % of mortality experienced by age 65, with a mean life expectancy of 41 years for females who survived to the minimum age at first birth (9 years). Elephant females have a relatively long period (c. 16 years) of viability after 95 % completed fertility, although reproduction does not entirely cease until they are over 65. We found no evidence of increased investment among females aged over 40 in terms of delay to next birth or calf mortality. The presence of a mother reproducing simultaneously with her daughter was associated with higher rates of daughter reproduction suggesting advantages from maternal (and grandmaternal) co-residence during reproduction.
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