Is Evolution determining how we are aging?
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How long we live, how many children we can have, and how tall we become are determined by many factors, including genes, the environment we live in, and chance—in human beings as well as in animals. Thus, evolution shapes the demographic setup of an organism, which, in turn, shapes evolution. But demographic inertia, chance, and the stochasticity of the environment also play major roles. Gaining a better understanding of these connections and investigating the parameters that define the mortality and fertility of individual species are the aims of the Laboratory of Evolutionary Biodemography.Detailed description
Latest News and Press Releases of the Laboratory
Uniform data for Biodemography - the database COMADRE run by the MPIDR contains demographic information on an unprecedented variety and number of animal species. (January 26, 2016)
Forever young - Senescence, the decay of a living body with age, is not inevitable for all species, as a long-term experiment with the freshwater polyp Hydra proves. (December 8, 2015)