Patterns of Age-specific Means and Genetic Variances of Mortality Rates Predicted by the Mutation-Accumulation Theory of Ageing

✍ Scribed by BRIAN CHARLESWORTH

• Book ID: 102975881
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 520 KB
• Volume: 210
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5193
• DOI: 10.1006/jtbi.2001.2296

✦ Synopsis

A general quantitative genetic model of mutations with age-speci"c deleterious e!ects is developed. It is shown that, for the simplest case of a species with age-independent reproductive rates and extrinsic adult mortality rates, and no pleiotropic e!ects of age-speci"c mutations, exponential increases with age of both the mean and additive genetic variance of age-speci"c mortality rates are expected. Models where age-speci"c mutations have pleiotropic e!ects on mortality that extend either throughout adult life, or are con"ned to juvenile stages, produce equilibria with exponential increases in the mean and additive variance of mortality rates during much of adult life. However, the rates of increase diminish late in life, and can even become zero. Predictions concerning the additive genetic correlations in mortality rates between di!erent ages are also developed. The predictions of the models are compared with data on humans and Drosophila.