Terminal life history: late-life fecundity and survival in experimental populations of Drosophila melanogaster
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Terminal life history: late-life fecundity and survival in experimental populations of Drosophila melanogaster James W. Curtsinger
Received: 30 April 2020 / Accepted: 23 June 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract There are two life history landmarks that can be used to define the terminal period in individual Drosophila melanogaster females: the cessation of daily oviposition, which defines the start of the retired stage, and final oviposition, which defines the start of post-ovipository survival. The terminal period is a substantial component of D. melanogaster life history. Analysis of published data on the daily fecundity and survival of 3971 individually maintained, mated female flies reveals that the terminal period is far more variable within populations than other life history components, including total adult life span. It has been reported that there is a negative correlation between fecundity and duration of the terminal state in recently collected wild stocks. Here I show that the negative correlation occurs in multiple inbred and outbred lab-adapted populations as well. In terms of proportion of adult life, lower fecundity flies spend on average twice as much time in the terminal stage as higher fecundity flies from the same population. Both high and low fecundity flies experience end-of-life
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-020-09889-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. J. W. Curtsinger (&) Department of Ecology, Evolution, & Behavior, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA e-mail: [email protected]
plateaus in mortality, with the former exhibiting higher plateau levels. The negative correlation between fecundity and terminal survival is of sufficient magnitude to create heterogeneity among the oldest old: the final 10% of survivors are predominately flies with a history of high fecundity, but about one in five is a low fecundity fly with long terminal stage. Keywords Retirement Post-ovipository survival Fecundity Life span Oldest-old ‘‘The end of life has its own nature, also worth our attention.’’ Mary Oliver (2009)
Introduction The classical literature on Drosophila melanogaster aging and life history is focused largely on total adult life span, and on the youthful productive period when fecundity is high and variation is likely to have significant consequences for Darwinian fitness. Less attention has been given to the end stage of life, with some notable exceptions. Several laboratories have documented a precipitous decline in daily fecundity rate that begins 10–15 days before death (Rauser et al. 2005; Rogina et al. 2007; Muller et al. 2007, 2009). Intestinal barrier function collapses 1 or 2 days before
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Biogerontology
death (Rera et al. 2012), a phenomenon that has been linked to dysbiosis of the gut microbiota (Clark et al. 2015). Intestinal barrier dysfu
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