Life-history traits or “fitness components”—such as age and size at maturity, fecundity and
fertility, age-specific rates of survival, and life span—are the major phenotypic determinants …

This short review portrays the evolutionary theories of aging in the light of the existing
discoveries from genomic and molecular genetic studies on aging and longevity. At the …

Males and females in many species differ in how they age and how long they live. These
differences have motivated much research, concerning both their evolution and the …

Two classic theories maintain that aging evolves either because of alleles whose
deleterious effects are confined to late life or because of alleles with broad pleiotropic effects …

Evolutionary theories of aging predict that fitness‐related traits, including reproductive
performance, will senesce because the strength of selection declines with age. Sexual …

As organisms age, the effectiveness of natural selection weakens, leading to age-related
decline in fitness-related traits. The evolution of age-related changes associated with …

Multicellular organisms display an enormous range of life history (LH) strategies and present
an evolutionary conundrum; despite strong natural selection, LH traits are characterized by …

The evolution of aging requires mutations with late-life deleterious effects. Classic theories
assume these mutations either have neutral (mutation accumulation) or beneficial …

The mutation accumulation theory of senescence predicts that age‐related deterioration of
fitness can be exaggerated when inbreeding causes homozygosity for deleterious alleles. A …

Life-history (LH) theory predicts that selection will optimize the trade-off between
reproduction and somatic maintenance. Reproductive ageing and finite life span are direct …