Researchers believe that elderly people have contributed to the long human lifespan. Natural selection is mercilessly selfish, according to a long-standing canon in evolutionary biology, preferring features that increase the likelihood of successful reproduction. This often indicates that the so-ca
Scientists believe that the secret to our long lives is our ancestors.Natural selection is mercilessly selfish, according to a long-standing canon in evolutionary biology, preferring features that increase the likelihood of successful reproduction. This often indicates that the so-called “force” of selection is well-equipped to eliminate harmful mutations that manifest during childhood and throughout the reproductive years.
For example, one of the leading ideas for human longevity is called the Grandmother Hypothesis — the idea that, through their efforts, maternal grandmothers can increase their fitness by helping improve the survival of their grandchildren, thereby enabling their daughters to have more children. Such fitness effects help ensure that the grandmother’s“And so that’s not reproduction, but it’s sort of an indirect reproduction.
“In our model, the large surplus that adults produce helps improve the survival and fertility of close kin, and of other group members who reliably share their food, too,” Davison said. “Viewed through the lens of food production and its effects, it turns out that the indirect fitness value of adults is also highest among reproductive-aged adults.
“Once you take into account that elders are also actively involved in helping others forage, then it adds even more fitness value to their activity and to them being alive,” Gurven said. “Not only do elders contribute to the group, but their usefulness helps ensure that they also receive from the surpluses, protections, and care from their group. In other words, interdependence runs both ways, from old to young, and young to old.
In contrast, chimpanzees — who represent our best guess as to what humans’ last common ancestor may have been like — are able to forage for themselves by age 5. However, their foraging activities require less skill, and they produce minimal surplus. Even so, the authors show that if a chimpanzee-like ancestor would share their food more widely, they could still generate enough indirect fitness contributions to increase the force of selection in later adulthood.
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