TY  - JOUR
A1  - Haemaelaeinen, Anni
A1  - Dammhahn, Melanie
A1  - Aujard, Fabienne
A1  - Eberle, Manfred
A1  - Hardy, Isabelle
A1  - Kappeler, Peter M.
A1  - Perret, Martine
A1  - Schliehe-Diecks, Susanne
A1  - Kraus, Cornelia
T1  - Senescence or selective disappearance? Age trajectories of body mass in wild and captive populations of a small-bodied primate
JF  - Proceedings of the Royal Society of London : B, Biological sciences
N2  - Classic theories of ageing consider extrinsic mortality (EM) a major factor in shaping longevity and ageing, yet most studies of functional ageing focus on species with low EM. This bias may cause overestimation of the influence of senescent declines in performance over condition-dependent mortality on demographic processes across taxa. To simultaneously investigate the roles of functional senescence (FS) and intrinsic, extrinsic and condition-dependent mortality in a species with a high predation risk in nature, we compared age trajectories of body mass (BM) in wild and captive grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) using longitudinal data (853 individuals followed through adulthood). We found evidence of non-random mortality in both settings. In captivity, the oldest animals showed senescence in their ability to regain lost BM, whereas no evidence of FS was found in the wild. Overall, captive animals lived longer, but a reversed sex bias in lifespan was observed between wild and captive populations. We suggest that even moderately condition-dependent EM may lead to negligible FS in the wild. While high EM may act to reduce the average lifespan, this evolutionary process may be counteracted by the increased fitness of the long-lived, high-quality individuals.
KW  - functional senescence
KW  - body mass
KW  - condition-dependent mortality
KW  - life-history evolution
KW  - lifespan
KW  - sex difference
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.0830
SN  - 0962-8452
SN  - 1471-2954
VL  - 281
IS  - 1791
PB  - Royal Society
CY  - London
ER  -