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The longer an organism lives the more it can reproduce, the more copies of it's genes there will be. Any gene that increases (reproductive) lifespan is strongly
by Houshalter 13y ago
The longer an organism lives the more it can reproduce, the more copies of it's genes there will be. Any gene that increases (reproductive) lifespan is strongly selected for.
- datadata 13y agoIt seems like the rate of reproduction rather than total reproductive lifespan is what matters for selection. A longer lifespan at the expense of a lower rate of reproduction would not be selected for.
- Houshalter 13y agoI don't see any reason why this would require that tradeoff.
- samatman 13y agoNot correct, though intuitive. Consider each offspring to be 50% of the genes of the parent. A parent with three children is competing with hir own genetics, and losing.
- Houshalter 13y agoYour reasoning makes no sense. If the parent can live longer they can reproduce more and therefore propagate more of their genes.
- samatman 13y agoIt does. 150% (more than the parent) of the genes have teamed up with a foreign 150% of genes against the parent.