ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021
Ageing and sociality: why, when and how does sociality change ageing patterns?
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. 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, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- The pace and shape of ant ageing.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Age-resistant worker reproductive potential and effect of helpers on prolonged lifespan in an ant.BMC biology · 2025Article
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- Reproductive Senescence in the Pollinator,Insects · 2025Article
- Extended longevity of termite kings and queens is accompanied by extranuclear localization of telomerase in somatic organs and caste-specific expression of its isoforms.Insect science · 2025Article
- The origin and maintenance of division of labour in an Indian paper wasp.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Stay social, stay young: a bioanthropological outlook on the processes linking sociality and ageing.GeroScience · 2025Review
- The ecology of ageing in wild societies: linking age structure and social behaviour.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Understanding age and society using natural populations.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- The evolution of ageing: classic theories and emerging ideas.Biogerontology · 2024Review
- How behavioural ageing affects infectious disease.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Developmental Diet Alters the Fecundity-Longevity Relationship and Age-Related Gene Expression in Drosophila melanogaster.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2023Article
- Advancing methods for the biodemography of aging within social contexts.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Article
- PLIN2-induced ectopic lipid accumulation promotes muscle ageing in gregarious locusts.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- Correlated evolution of social organization and lifespan in mammals.Nature communications · 2023Article
- The evolution of ageing in cooperative breeders.Evolution letters · 2022Article
- Patterns and consequences of age-linked change in local relatedness in animal societies.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- Kidnapping intergroup young: an alternative strategy to maintain group size in the group-living pied babbler (Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Social divergence: molecular pathways underlying castes and longevity in a facultatively eusocial small carpenter bee.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Individual lifespans vary tremendously between and also within species, but the proximate and ultimate causes of different ageing speeds are still not well understood. Sociality appears to be associated with the evolution of greater longevity and probably also with a larger plasticity of the shape and pace of ageing. For example, reproductives of several termites and ants reach lifespans that surpass those of their non-reproductive nestmates by one or two decades. In this issue, 15 papers explore the interrelations between sociality and individual longevity in both, group-living vertebrates and social insects. Here, we briefly give an overview of the contents of the various contributions, including theoretical and comparative studies, and we explore the similarities and dissimilarities in proximate mechanisms underlying ageing among taxa, with particular emphasis on nutrient-sensing pathways and, in insects, juvenile hormone. These studies point to an underestimated role of more downstream processes. We highlight the need for reliable transcriptomic markers of ageing and a comprehensive ageing theory of social animals, which includes the reproductive potential of workers, and considers the fact that social insect queens reach maturity only after a prolonged period of producing non-reproductive workers. This article is part of the theme issue 'Ageing and sociality: why, when and how does sociality change ageing patterns?'
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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.