ArticleAging cell2020
Shorter life and reduced fecundity can increase colony fitness in virtual Caenorhabditis elegans.
Article in Aging cell, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of rearing environment on C. elegans: phenotypic, transcriptomic and intergenerational responses to 3D enriched habitats.Biology open · 2026Article
- From manual counting to YOLO: Using computer vision to automate large-scale fecundity assays in C. elegans.PloS one · 2026Article
- Review
- The impact of rearing environment onbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A hierarchy of causes of death in senescentbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Life history in Caenorhabditis elegans: from molecular genetics to evolutionary ecology.Genetics · 2024Review
- Biological constraint, evolutionary spandrels and antagonistic pleiotropy.Ageing research reviews · 2024Review
- Investigating the Immunomodulatory Effects of Antigenic PLGA Nanoparticles and Nutritional Synergy inBioNanoScience · 2024Article
- Colony level fitness analysis identifies a trade-off between population growth rate and dauer yield in Caenorhabditis elegans.BMC ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- C. elegans ageing is accelerated by a self-destructive reproductive programme.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Effect ofFoods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Mitochondrion-targeted antioxidant SkQ1 prevents rapid animal death caused by highly diverse shocks.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- GPCR signaling regulates severe stress-induced organismic death in Caenorhabditis elegans.Aging cell · 2023Article
- A laboratory and simulation platform to integrate individual life history traits and population dynamics.Nature computational science · 2022Article
- Sonneradon A Extends Lifespan ofMarine drugs · 2022Article
- Innate Immunity as an Executor of the Programmed Death of Individual Organisms for the Benefit of the Entire Population.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Altruism and Phenoptosis as Programs Supported by Evolution.Biochemistry. Biokhimiia · 2021Article
- Death happy: adaptive ageing and its evolution by kin selection in organisms with colonial ecology.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Elevated Trehalose Levels inMetabolites · 2021Article
- Reproductive Aging inFrontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2021Review
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, loss of function of many genes leads to increases in lifespan, sometimes of a very large magnitude. Could this reflect the occurrence of programmed death that, like apoptosis of cells, promotes fitness? The notion that programmed death evolves as a mechanism to remove worn out, old individuals in order to increase food availability for kin is not supported by classic evolutionary theory for most species. However, it may apply in organisms with colonies of closely related individuals such as C. elegans in which largely clonal populations subsist on spatially limited food patches. Here, we ask whether food competition between nonreproductive adults and their clonal progeny could favor programmed death by using an in silico model of C. elegans. Colony fitness was estimated as yield of dauer larva propagules from a limited food patch. Simulations showed that not only shorter lifespan but also shorter reproductive span and reduced adult feeding rate can increase colony fitness, potentially by reducing futile food consumption. Early adult death was particularly beneficial when adult food consumption rate was high. These results imply that programmed, adaptive death could promote colony fitness in C. elegans through a consumer sacrifice mechanism. Thus, C. elegans lifespan may be limited not by aging in the usual sense but rather by apoptosis-like programmed death.
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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.