Evolution of Prolonged Longevity in Humans

Siirretty Doriast

Reproductive cessation and post-reproductive lifespan in Asian elephants and pre-industrial humans

Conclusions: Our results show that the reproductive and survival patterns of Asian elephants differ from other long-lived animals exhibiting menopause, such as humans, and extreme longevity alone does not promote the evolution of menopause or post-reproductive lifespan, adding weight to the unusual kin-selected benefits suggested to favour such traits in humans and killer whales.</p

Diet quality in preschool children and associations with individual eating behavior and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage. The STEPS Study

A good quality diet in childhood is important for optimal growth as well as for long-term health. It is not well established how eating behaviors affect overall diet quality in childhood. Moreover, very few studies have considered the association of diet quality and a neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage in childhood. Our aim was to investigate how diet quality is associated with eating behaviors and neighborhood disadvantage and their interaction in preschool age children in Finland. The participants were from the Steps to Healthy Development Study at age 2 y (n = 780) and 5 y (n = 653). Diet quality was measured with a short questionnaire on habitual food consumption and eating behavior was assessed with the child eating behavior questionnaire to indicate the child's eating style regarding food approach and food avoidance dimensions. Information on neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage were obtained from the statistics Finland grid database. We found that diet quality was higher at 5 years compared to 2 years of age (p < 0.001). Food approach subscale, enjoyment of food, was positively associated with the diet quality (p < 0.001 for 2 and 5 y) while subscale desire to drink was negatively associated with the diet quality (p = 0.001 for 2 and 5 y). Food avoidance was negatively associated with the diet quality both at 2 and at 5 years of age (p < 0.001). A higher neighborhood disadvantage was negatively associated with the diet quality at the age of 2 years (p = 0.02), but not at the age of 5 years. Eating behavior had similar associations with diet quality both in affluent and deprived neighborhoods. Our results suggest that both the eating behavior and neighborhood disadvantage are, already in the early age, important factors when considering children's diet quality.Peer reviewe

Parental feeding practices and child eating behavior in different socioeconomic neighborhoods and their association with childhood weight : The STEPS study

Child obesity risk, child eating behavior and parental feeding practices show a graded association with individual level socioeconomic status. However, their associations with neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage are largely unknown. In this study (n = 682), we investigated how parental feeding practices and child eating behaviors were associated with body mass index and risk of overweight at preschool age in affluent and disadvantaged neighborhoods. We found that high food approach tendency in disadvantaged neighborhoods predicted higher body mass index and increased the risk of overweight at the age of 6 years compared with affluent neighborhoods. Our results suggest that children's eating habits may have stronger impact on overweight risk in disadvantaged than in affluent neighborhoods.Peer reviewe

Changes in Length of Grandparenthood in Finland 1790-1959

The importance of grandparents for their grandchildren is well-studied in several disciplines, and studies are now also addressing the potential effects of grandchildren on grandparental wellbeing. Any such effects are limited by the time grandparents share with their grandchildren. Changing child mortality rates, grandparental longevity, and childbearing patterns may have profoundly altered the length of grandparenthood across the demographic transition, but this has received little scientific attention. Using a genealogical dataset from Finland, we investigate changes in this shared time, from the late 18th to mid-20th century. We found the number of shared years between grandparents and grandchildren was low until roughly the onset of industrialisation in Finland, after which point shared time increased rapidly, from both the grandchild and grandparent perspectives. Understanding changing patterns in the opportunity for intergenerational transfers between grandparents and grandchildren has implications for several fields of study, including biology, demography, sociology, health studies, and economics

Nearby grandmother enhances calf survival and reproduction in Asian elephants

Usually animals reproduce into old age, but a few species such as humans and killer whales can live decades after their last reproduction. The grandmother hypothesis proposes that such life-history evolved through older females switching to invest in their existing (grand) offspring, thereby increasing their inclusive fitness and selection for post-reproductive lifespan. However, positive grandmother effects are also found in non-menopausal taxa, but evidence of their associated fitness effects is rare and only a few tests of the hypothesis in such species exist. Here we investigate the grandmother effects in Asian elephants. Using a multigenerational demographic dataset on semi-captive elephants in Myanmar, we found that grandcalves from young mothers (< 20 years) had 8 times lower mortality risk if the grandmother resided with her grandcalf compared to grandmothers residing elsewhere. Resident grandmothers also decreased their daughters' inter-birth intervals by one year. In contrast to the hypothesis predictions, the grandmother's own reproductive status did not modify such grandmother benefits. That elephant grandmothers increased their inclusive fitness by enhancing their daughter's reproductive rate and success irrespective of their own reproductive status suggests that fitness-enhancing grandmaternal effects are widespread, and challenge the view that grandmother effects alone select for menopause coupled with long post-reproductive lifespan

Differences in age-specific mortality between wild-caught and captive-born Asian elephants

Wild-capture of numerous species is common for diverse purposes, including medical experiments, conservation, veterinary interventions and research, but little objective data exists on its consequences. We use exceptional demographic records on Asian elephants from timber camps in Myanmar to investigate the long-term consequences of wild-capture during 1951-2000 on their mortality (N = 5150). We show that captured elephants have increased mortality compared to captive-born elephants, regardless of their capture method. These detrimental effects of capture are similar for both sexes but differ substantially according to age. Elephants captured and tamed at older ages show a higher increase in mortality after capture than elephants captured and tamed young. Moreover, the increased mortality risk following capture and taming is still perceived several years after capture. Our results are timely given the continued capture of elephants and other wild animals to supplement captive populations despite the alarming declines of wild populations globally

Males have more aggressive and less sociable personalities than females in semi-captive Asian elephants

Personality, i.e. consistent between-individual differences in behaviour, has been documented in many species. Yet little is known about how males and females of long-lived, highly social species differ in their measures of personality structure. We investigated sex differences in the mean, variance, and covariance of three previously reported personality traits (Attentiveness, Sociability, Aggressiveness) in 150 female and 107 male Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) from a semi-captive population in Myanmar. These three personality traits were obtained by performing exploratory factor analysis on 28 behavioural items that had been rated by experienced elephant handlers. We found that males scored significantly higher on Aggressiveness and tended to score lower on Sociability than females. However, no sex difference was found in the mean scores of Attentiveness. Variances for the three personality traits did not differ between the sexes, suggesting that male and female elephants share the same range of personality variation. Likewise, trait covariances were similar between the sexes. While both sexes show complex sociality in the wild, female Asian elephants typically live in highly social family units, whereas male elephants' social bonds are weaker. Males usually form dominance ranks by aggressive interactions, especially during musth. Our results on a large sample of individuals living in their natural environment are thus in agreement with elephant life-histories and parallel the findings of sex differences in other long-lived highly social species with similar life-histories