ArticleScientific reports2016
Comparative analyses of longevity and senescence reveal variable survival benefits of living in zoos across mammals.
Article in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 82 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
82 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The influence of immune challenges on the mean and variance in reproductive investment: a meta-analysis of the terminal investment hypothesis.BMC biology · 2023Pooled it
- Life span, growth, senescence and island syndrome: Accounting for imperfect detection and continuous growth.The Journal of animal ecology · 2023Pooled it
- Dental Calculus Formation Is Linked to Diet and Phylogeny in Mammals.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Lifestyle change accelerates epigenetic ageing in King penguins.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Aging populations threaten conservation goals of zoos.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Enclosures with flexible structures stimulate species-typical locomotion, but not locomotion quantity, in zoo-housed Bornean orangutans (Animal welfare (South Mimms, England) · 2026Article
- Unveiling the significance of dog domestication in cognitive dysfunction: Are wolves protected?Open veterinary journal · 2025Article
- Article
- Sexual selection drives sex difference in adult life expectancy across mammals and birds.Science advances · 2025Article
- No Evidence That Life History Strategies Shape Within-Body Mosaics of Ageing.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Comparison of age-related inflammation and oxidative stress in two lemur species.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2025Article
- Diagnostic Approach and Pathological Characterization of Metastatic Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma in a Captive Puma (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Ecological Realism Accelerates Epigenetic Aging in Mice.Aging cell · 2025Article
- Variation in Mortality and Ageing Rate in a Fast-Paced Species: Insights From 24 Years of Hazel Dormouse (Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Maximum lifespan and brain size in mammals are associated with gene family size expansion related to immune system functions.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- No evidence for Peto's paradox in terrestrial vertebrates.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Prenatal sex determination illuminates the unusual adult sex ratio of a group-living lemur.Biology letters · 2025Article
- A Macaque Model for the Effects of Hybridization on Body Size.American journal of biological anthropology · 2025Article
- Cancer Prevalence across Vertebrates.Cancer discovery · 2025Article
- Indirect evidence of an early mating advantage in wild cooperatively breeding male banded mongooses.Scientific reports · 2025Article
22 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
While it is commonly believed that animals live longer in zoos than in the wild, this assumption has rarely been tested. We compared four survival metrics (longevity, baseline mortality, onset of senescence and rate of senescence) between both sexes of free-ranging and zoo populations of more than 50 mammal species. We found that mammals from zoo populations generally lived longer than their wild counterparts (84% of species). The effect was most notable in species with a faster pace of life (i.e. a short life span, high reproductive rate and high mortality in the wild) because zoos evidently offer protection against a number of relevant conditions like predation, intraspecific competition and diseases. Species with a slower pace of life (i.e. a long life span, low reproduction rate and low mortality in the wild) benefit less from captivity in terms of longevity; in such species, there is probably less potential for a reduction in mortality. These findings provide a first general explanation about the different magnitude of zoo environment benefits among mammalian species, and thereby highlight the effort that is needed to improve captive conditions for slow-living species that are particularly susceptible to extinction in the wild.
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