Exam 3: Evolutionary Theories of Longevity and Aging

Williams's theory of antagonistic pleiotropy suggests that the trade-off between benefit and detriment of a pleiotropic gene will always favor the ______,if it occurs at the right time in the reproductive life span.

The force of natural selection increases with age.

Hamilton's mathematical theory on longevity was a monumental breakthrough in the understanding of how ______,not aging,evolved.

The grandmother hypothesis posits that care given by grandmothers to children in early societies allowed their daughters to have more children and,thus,to increase overall fitness.

Choose the term that fits the following definition: A laboratory method that models natural selection,in which eggs or offspring are collected from short-lived,rapidly reproducing species that have a particular trait.The process continues for several generations until the trait has become dominant in the population.

All experiments in wild populations agree with those conducted in the laboratory that organisms living in areas of high predation have significantly shortened longevity.

Williams combined the general concepts of ______ with Medawar's ______ to suggest a mechanism by which senescence can arise in a population in which genes are selected for reproductive success.

The age at which reproduction begins to wane does not affect longevity.

Age-structure analysis includes measures of survival and ______ in order to evaluate reproductive rates and the age at which fitness is greatest.

The disposable soma theory is based on the evolutionary principle that all environments have ______ resources and organisms compete for those resources.

The disposable soma theory suggests that reproductively successful early metazoans allocated their available resources to:

Artificial selection experiments in Drosophila supported Fisher's and Hamilton's mathematical predictions.

Medawar used the example of Huntington's chorea to suggest that senescence closely reflected the fixation of a single gene.

the logistic equation \DELTAN = rN[(K \minus N)/K]),what does the variable r represent?

______ is a process in which genes can be fixed in a small population as a result of the random sorting of alleles at the time of meiosis.

The disposable soma theory suggests a trade-off between the soma and germ cells.

Both the intrinsic and extrinsic rates of mortality are linked to the timing of reproduction,which,in turn,affects longevity.

The disposable soma theory has it basis in what tenet of evolutionary theory?

termed by Weismann,______ traits are classified as physical problems of aging that occur after reproduction and are neutral to the forces of natural selection.

The rate of aging in a population or an individual that is caused by environmental hazards is known as: