Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2007 Feb;62(2):149-60.
doi: 10.1093/gerona/62.2.149.

An analysis of the relationship between metabolism, developmental schedules, and longevity using phylogenetic independent contrasts

João Pedro de Magalhães  1 , Joana Costa, George M Church
Affiliations

An analysis of the relationship between metabolism, developmental schedules, and longevity using phylogenetic independent contrasts

João Pedro de Magalhães et al. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2007 Feb.

Abstract

Comparative studies of aging are often difficult to interpret because of the different factors that tend to correlate with longevity. We used the AnAge database to study these factors, particularly metabolism and developmental schedules, previously associated with longevity in vertebrate species. Our results show that, after correcting for body mass and phylogeny, basal metabolic rate does not correlate with longevity in eutherians or birds, although it negatively correlates with marsupial longevity and time to maturity. We confirm the idea that age at maturity is typically proportional to adult life span, and show that mammals that live longer for their body size, such as bats and primates, also tend to have a longer developmental time for their body size. Lastly, postnatal growth rates were negatively correlated with adult life span in mammals but not in birds. Our work provides a detailed view of factors related to species longevity with implications for how comparative studies of aging are interpreted.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Plot of the ln-transformed relationship between body mass (M) and maximum longevity (tmax) across vertebrates. A, Gray circles: all mammal, bird, reptile, and amphibian species in AnAge (n = 1456). B, Gray line: avian regression curve; black line: mammalian regression curve minus bats and cetaceans. Closed circles: primates (n = 137); gray squares: bats (n = 73), the two longest-lived mammalian orders for their body size.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Ln-transformed relationship between basal metabolic rate (BMR) residuals and maximum longevity (tmax) in mammals (A; n =300) and birds (B; n = 167). Closed circles: individual mammalian species (A); gray circles: individual bird species (B). Both correlations are not statistically significant, even though they do not consider the effects of phylogeny.
Figure 3
Figure 3
A, Relationship between ln-transformed time to maturity (tsex) and adult life span in mammals. Gray circles: individual species (n = 606). Correlation is statistically significant, even though it does not consider the effects of phylogeny. B, Ln-transformed relationship between time to maturity residuals and adult life-span residuals in mammals. Gray circles: individual species (n =606). Although it does not consider the effects of phylogeny, the correlation is statistically significant. C and D, Relationship between the logarithm of independent contrasts of age at maturity and adult life span in mammals (C) and primates (D). Both correlations are statistically significant. Terminal taxa contain data for at least three species.
Figure 4
Figure 4
A, Ln-transformed relationship between postnatal growth rate (K) and adult life span in mammals. Gray circles: individual species (n =204). Although it does not consider the effects of phylogeny, the correlation is statistically significant. B, Relationship between the logarithm of independent contrasts of growth rate and adult life span in mammals. The correlation is statistically significant. Terminal taxa contain data for at least three species.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Austad SN. Diverse aging rates in metazoans: targets for functional genomics. Mech Ageing Dev. 2005;126:43–49. - PubMed
    1. Miller RA. Kleemeier award lecture: are there genes for aging? J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 1999;54A:B297–B307. - PubMed
    1. de Magalhães JP. Species selection in comparative studies of aging and antiaging research. In: Conn PM, editor. Handbook of Models for Human Aging. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press; 2006. pp. 9–20.
    1. Finch CE. Longevity, Senescence, and the Genome. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press; 1990.
    1. Speakman JR. Correlations between physiology and lifespan–two widely ignored problems with comparative studies. Aging Cell. 2005;4:167–175. - PubMed

Publication types