ArticleBMC biology2023
Directional selection coupled with kin selection favors the establishment of senescence.
Article in BMC biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- AEGIS: Individual-based modeling of life history evolution.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Aging as a Loss of Goal-Directedness: An Evolutionary Simulation and Analysis Unifying Regeneration with Anatomical Rejuvenation.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Evolvable Soma Theory of Ageing: insights from computer simulations.Biogerontology · 2025Article
- Beneficial death: A substantial element of evolution?Biogerontology · 2025Article
- The evolution of ageing: classic theories and emerging ideas.Biogerontology · 2024Review
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4 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundConventional wisdom in evolutionary theory considers aging as a non-selected byproduct of natural selection. Based on this, conviction aging was regarded as an inevitable phenomenon. It was also thought that in the wild organisms tend to die from diseases, predation and other accidents before they could reach the time when senescence takes its course. Evidence has accumulated, however, that aging is not inevitable and there are organisms that show negative aging even. Furthermore, old age does play a role in the deaths of many different organisms in the wild also. The hypothesis of programmed aging posits that a limited lifespan can evolve as an adaptation (i.e., positively selected for) in its own right, partly because it can enhance evolvability by eliminating "outdated" genotypes. A major shortcoming of this idea is that non-aging sexual individuals that fail to pay the demographic cost of aging would be able to steal good genes by recombination from aging ones.
resultsHere, we show by a spatially explicit, individual-based simulation model that aging can positively be selected for if a sufficient degree of kin selection complements directional selection. Under such conditions, senescence enhances evolvability because the rate of aging and the rate of recombination play complementary roles. The selected aging rate is highest at zero recombination (clonal reproduction). In our model, increasing extrinsic mortality favors evolved aging by making up free space, thereby decreasing competition and increasing drift, even when selection is stabilizing and the level of aging is set by mutation-selection balance. Importantly, higher extrinsic mortality is not a substitute for evolved aging under directional selection either. Reduction of relatedness decreases the evolved level of aging; chance relatedness favors non-aging genotypes. The applicability of our results depends on empirical values of directional and kin selection in the wild.
conclusionsWe found that aging can positively be selected for in a spatially explicit population model when sufficiently strong directional and kin selection prevail, even if reproduction is sexual. The view that there is a conceptual link between giving up clonal reproduction and evolving an aging genotype is supported by computational results.
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