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Article doesn't address the question of whether a short lifespan is adaptive (i.e. whether current 'limits' on lifespan have nothing to do with systematic barri
by awinter-py 10y ago
Article doesn't address the question of whether a short lifespan is adaptive (i.e. whether current 'limits' on lifespan have nothing to do with systematic barriers). One reason for this would be the need to pack in more generations under conditions where rapid change is necessary in order to compete.
The research on extra copies of tumor-fighter TP53 in elephants suggests that when the conditions are right, senescence can be rolled back. The fact that mammoths are extinct and elephants are next could mean there are downsides to this evolutionary strategy.
- bitwize 10y agoMammoths are extinct and elephants are "next" because of human hunting.
- awinter-py 10y agoAnother way to say that is that hominids with shorter lifespans out-evolved them. Today elephants are threatened more by habitat competition with us than demand for ivory or meat. Farmers at the edge of the wildlife parks in india and africa don't want to kill the elephants, they're protecting their crops. Orangutans are in the same boat. Another perspective is that long cancer-free lives turned the pleistocene megafauna into meat repositories for any smart, mobile team predator, and that if primates didn't use the mammoths as a safe way into the arctic some other pack animal would have (wolves, for example). Causation is hard to model in coevolution. People who study e.g. bacteriophages use the term 'domestication' to describe how coevolution partners influence each other; if you're going to read one paper about this read the one about bracoviruses and butterflies, it's eerie.