Individual Fecundity and Senescence in Drosophila and Medfly

Abstract

Evolutionary theory postulates that there should be a robust relationship between fecundity and longevity. Prior work has generally supported this concept, but has not shed much light on the mechanisms at play. In preceding work, we have developed and verified a mathematical model of Drosophila melanogaster female fecundity based on the analysis of empirical studies independently done by several different laboratories. Then we applied this technique to Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly) populations. In this article we analyze associations between individual longevity and the parameters of individual fecundity pattern in Drosophila and medfly. We cluster both Drosophila and medfly individuals by life span and discuss the differences. It allows us to demonstrate that only one fecundity-related parameter is associated with longevity in Drosophila, whereas two such parameters can be found in medflies. This difference demonstrates different ways of aging in various Diptera species. Finally, we discuss the possible implications of this finding.

Reproductive and post‐reproductive life history of wild‐caughtDrosophila melanogasterunder laboratory conditions

“…Notably, the model proposed by Novoseltsev et al . (, , , ) (model 1, ‘0‐plateau‐exp’; see Supporting Materials and Methods) did not fit our data well. In particular, our empirical data and best‐fit model failed to confirm the existence of a fecundity plateau postulated by these authors; instead, we found clear evidence for a pronounced fecundity peak (Fig.…”

Drosophila TAP/p32 is a core histone chaperone that cooperates with NAP-1, NLP, and nucleophosmin in sperm chromatin remodeling during fertilization

“…Fecundity and embryonic lethality in P32 mutants were analyzed as described (Novoseltsev et al 2005). See the Supplemental Material for details of genetic experiments.…”

Mutation Patterns Due to Converging Mitochondrial Replication and Transcription Increase Lifespan, and Cause Growth Rate-Longevity Tradeoffs

“…For lifespan, convergence decreases cumulation of mutations and in general, increases mutational robustness; for developmental rates, they are the direct result of decreased replication and transcription rates because of increased collision frequencies between replication and transcription forks. It is notable that this rationale yields a molecular mechanism for the well known negative association between metabolic rates and longevities, as described in Insects (Antler flies, Bonduriansky & Brassil, 2005;Drosophila, Marden et al, 2003;Novoseltsev et al, 2005;Mockett & Sohal, 2006), nematodes (Jenkins et al, 2004;Chen et al, 2007;Lee et al, 2006;Hughes et al, 2007) and mice (Cargill et al, 2003;and others, Bonsall, 2006). Some ecological data explaining the tradeoffs exist (Bonduriansky & Brassil, 2005), and results suggest the tradeoff is due to dietary metabolism (Partridge et al, 2005a,b;Speakman, 2005a,b;Kaeberlein et al 2006;Ruggiero & Ferrucci, 2006;Szewczyk et al, 2006;Wolkow & Iser, 2006).…”