Sex differences in adult lifespan and aging rates of mortality across wild mammals

Jean François Lemaître; Victor Ronget; Morgane Tidière; Dominique Allainé; Vérane Berger; Aurélie Cohas; Fernando Colchero; Dalia A. Conde; Michael Garratt; András Liker; Gabriel A.B. Marais; Alexander Scheuerlein; Tamás Székely; Jean Michel Gaillard

doi:10.1073/pnas.1911999117

Sex differences in adult lifespan and aging rates of mortality across wild mammals

Jean François Lemaître, Victor Ronget, Morgane Tidière, Dominique Allainé, Vérane Berger, Aurélie Cohas, Fernando Colchero, Dalia A. Conde, Michael Garratt, András Liker, Gabriel A.B. Marais, Alexander Scheuerlein, Tamás Székely, Jean Michel Gaillard

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Abstract

In human populations, women consistently outlive men, which suggests profound biological foundations for sex differences in survival. Quantifying whether such sex differences are also pervasive in wild mammals is a crucial challenge in both evolutionary biology and biogerontology. Here, we compile demographic data from 134 mammal populations, encompassing 101 species, to show that the female's median lifespan is on average 18.6% longer than that of conspecific males, whereas in humans the female advantage is on average 7.8%. On the contrary, we do not find any consistent sex differences in aging rates. In addition, sex differences in median adult lifespan and aging rates are both highly variable across species. Our analyses suggest that the magnitude of sex differences in mammalian mortality patterns is likely shaped by local environmental conditions in interaction with the sex-specific costs of sexual selection.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	8546-8553
Number of pages	8
Journal	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume	117
Issue number	15
Early online date	23 Mar 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911999117
Publication status	Published - 14 Apr 2020

Funding

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Shripad Tuljapurkar and Tim Coulson for insightful comments on an earlier draft of this work and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. This work was supported by grants from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) (ANR-15-CE32-0002-01 to J.-F.L.) and performed within the framework of the LABEX ECOFECT (ANR-11-LABX-0048) of Université de Lyon, within the program “Investissements d’Avenir” (ANR-11-IDEX-0007) operated by the ANR. T.S. and J.-M.G. were supported by a grant from the International Exchanges scheme CNRS-ROYAL SOCIETY 2016. T.S. was also funded by a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (WM170050) and by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary grants (ÉLVONAL KKP-126949 and K-116310). A.L. was supported from the National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary grant (KH 130430) and the Hungarian Ministry of Human Capacities grant (20385-3/2018/FEKUSTRAT).

Keywords

Comparative analysis
Life history
Longevity
Senescence
Sexual selection

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1073/pnas.1911999117Licence: Other

Lemaitre et al_revision_SUBMITTED.PDFAccepted author manuscript, 2.36 MB

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Lemaître, J. F., Ronget, V., Tidière, M., Allainé, D., Berger, V., Cohas, A., Colchero, F., Conde, D. A., Garratt, M., Liker, A., Marais, G. A. B., Scheuerlein, A., Székely, T., & Gaillard, J. M. (2020). Sex differences in adult lifespan and aging rates of mortality across wild mammals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(15), 8546-8553. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911999117

Lemaître, JF, Ronget, V, Tidière, M, Allainé, D, Berger, V, Cohas, A, Colchero, F, Conde, DA, Garratt, M, Liker, A, Marais, GAB, Scheuerlein, A, Székely, T & Gaillard, JM 2020, 'Sex differences in adult lifespan and aging rates of mortality across wild mammals', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 117, no. 15, pp. 8546-8553. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911999117

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abstract = "In human populations, women consistently outlive men, which suggests profound biological foundations for sex differences in survival. Quantifying whether such sex differences are also pervasive in wild mammals is a crucial challenge in both evolutionary biology and biogerontology. Here, we compile demographic data from 134 mammal populations, encompassing 101 species, to show that the female's median lifespan is on average 18.6% longer than that of conspecific males, whereas in humans the female advantage is on average 7.8%. On the contrary, we do not find any consistent sex differences in aging rates. In addition, sex differences in median adult lifespan and aging rates are both highly variable across species. Our analyses suggest that the magnitude of sex differences in mammalian mortality patterns is likely shaped by local environmental conditions in interaction with the sex-specific costs of sexual selection.",

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AU - Conde, Dalia A.

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Sex differences in adult lifespan and aging rates of mortality across wild mammals

Abstract

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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