Related papers: On age-specific selection and extensive lifespan b…
The grandmother hypothesis is the most influential account of the evolution of menopause in humans, but other theories warrant investigation. Here I use simulations to investigate two theories that ground the evolution of menopause in…
The provision of intergenerational care, via the Grandmother Hypothesis, has been implicated in the evolution of post-fertile longevity, particularly in humans. However, if grandmothering does provide fitness benefits, a key question is why…
Great apes, the other living members of our hominid family, become decrepit before the age of forty and rarely outlive their fertile years. In contrast, women - even in high mortality hunter-gatherer populations - usually remain healthy and…
We use a two-sex partial differential equation (PDE) model based on the Grandmother Hypothesis. We build on an earlier model by Kim et al. [27] by allowing for evolution in both longevity and age at last birth, and also assuming that…
In many cohorts (such as the UK Biobank) on which Mendelian Randomization studies are routinely performed, data on participants' longevity is inadequate as the majority of participants are still living. To nevertheless estimate effects on…
Many life-history traits, like the age at maturity or adult longevity, are important determinants of the generation time. For instance, semelparous species whose adults reproduce once and die have shorter generation times than iteroparous…
A substantial period of life after reproduction ends, known as postreproductive lifespan (PRLS), is at odds with classical life history theory. Prolonged PRLS has been confirmed in only two non-human mammals, both odontocete cetaceans. We…
We present a mathematical simplification for the evolutionary dynamics of a heritable trait within a two-sex population. This trait is assumed to control the timing of sex-specific life-history events, such as the age of sexual maturity and…
Online genealogy datasets contain extensive information about millions of people and their past and present family connections. This vast amount of data can assist in identifying various patterns in human population. In this study, we…
Standard evolutionary theories of aging and mortality, implicitly based on assumptions of spatial averaging, hold that natural selection cannot favor shorter lifespan without direct compensating benefit to individual reproductive success.…
We study age-structured branching models with reproduction law depending on the remaining lifetime of the parent. The lifespan of an individual is decided at its birth and its remaining lifetime decreases at the unit speed. The models…
Sexual selection theory models evolution of sexual signals and preferences using simple life histories. However, life-history models predict that males benefit from increasing sexual investment approaching old age, producing age-dependent…
The analysis of the demographic transition of the past century and a half, using both empirical data and mathematical models, has rendered a wealth of well-established facts, including the dramatic increases in life expectancy. Despite…
We investigate the extent to which groups with elevated mortality rates ex ante might opt out of guaranteed national pensions in favour of demographically aligned plans, which we label equitable longevity risk sharing (ELRiS) pools, even if…
This study explores the impact of gender differences in preferences and productivity in home production on the time allocation in married couples, particularly in relation to childcare responsibilities. Using aggregated data from Japan, we…
If individuals at the highest mortality risk are also least likely to lapse a life insurance policy, then lapse-supported premiums magnify adverse selection costs. As an example, we model 'Term to 100' contracts, and risk as revealed by…
Age and gender are two important factors that play crucial roles in the way organisms allocate their social effort. In this study, we analyse a large mobile phone dataset to explore the way lifehistory influences human sociality and the way…
We have modified the sexual Penna model by introducing the fluctuating environment and fluctuations representing physiological functions of individuals. Additionally, we have introduced the mother care corresponding to the protection…
When predicting the fate and consequences of recurring deleterious mutations in self-fertilising populations most models developed make the assumption that populations have discrete non-overlapping generations. This makes them biologically…
Social networks have turned out to be of fundamental importance both for our understanding human sociality and for the design of digital communication technology. However, social networks are themselves based on dyadic relationships and we…