Asian elephants exhibit post-reproductive lifespans
Abstract Background The existence of extended post-reproductive lifespan is an evolutionary puzzle, and its taxonomic prevalence is debated. One way of measuring post-reproductive life is with post-reproductive representation, the proportion of adult years lived by females after cessation of reprodu...
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ftdatacite:10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4707845.v1 2023-05-15T18:33:25+02:00 Asian elephants exhibit post-reproductive lifespans Chapman, Simon Jackson, John Htut, Win Lummaa, Virpi Lahdenperä, Mirkka 2019 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4707845.v1 https://springernature.figshare.com/collections/Asian_elephants_exhibit_post-reproductive_lifespans/4707845/1 unknown figshare https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1513-1 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4707845 CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 CC-BY Physiology FOS Biological sciences Evolutionary Biology Ecology Sociology FOS Sociology Inorganic Chemistry FOS Chemical sciences Computational Biology Collection article 2019 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4707845.v1 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1513-1 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4707845 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z Abstract Background The existence of extended post-reproductive lifespan is an evolutionary puzzle, and its taxonomic prevalence is debated. One way of measuring post-reproductive life is with post-reproductive representation, the proportion of adult years lived by females after cessation of reproduction. Analyses of post-reproductive representation in mammals have claimed that only humans and some toothed whale species exhibit extended post-reproductive life, but there are suggestions of a post-reproductive stage for false killer whales and Asian elephants. Here, we investigate the presence of post-reproductive lifespan in Asian elephants using an extended demographic dataset collected from semi-captive timber elephants in Myanmar. Furthermore, we investigate the sensitivity of post-reproductive representation values to availability of long-term data over 50â years. Results We find support for the presence of an extended post-reproductive stage in Asian elephants, and that post-reproductive representation and its underlying demographic rates depend on the length of study period in a long-lived animal. Conclusions The extended post-reproductive lifespan is unlikely due to physiological reproductive cessation, and may instead be driven by mating preferences or condition-dependent fertility. Our results also show that it is crucial to revisit such population measures in long-lived species as more data is collected, and if the typical lifespan of the species exceeds the initial study period. Article in Journal/Newspaper toothed whale DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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Physiology FOS Biological sciences Evolutionary Biology Ecology Sociology FOS Sociology Inorganic Chemistry FOS Chemical sciences Computational Biology |
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Physiology FOS Biological sciences Evolutionary Biology Ecology Sociology FOS Sociology Inorganic Chemistry FOS Chemical sciences Computational Biology Chapman, Simon Jackson, John Htut, Win Lummaa, Virpi Lahdenperä, Mirkka Asian elephants exhibit post-reproductive lifespans |
topic_facet |
Physiology FOS Biological sciences Evolutionary Biology Ecology Sociology FOS Sociology Inorganic Chemistry FOS Chemical sciences Computational Biology |
description |
Abstract Background The existence of extended post-reproductive lifespan is an evolutionary puzzle, and its taxonomic prevalence is debated. One way of measuring post-reproductive life is with post-reproductive representation, the proportion of adult years lived by females after cessation of reproduction. Analyses of post-reproductive representation in mammals have claimed that only humans and some toothed whale species exhibit extended post-reproductive life, but there are suggestions of a post-reproductive stage for false killer whales and Asian elephants. Here, we investigate the presence of post-reproductive lifespan in Asian elephants using an extended demographic dataset collected from semi-captive timber elephants in Myanmar. Furthermore, we investigate the sensitivity of post-reproductive representation values to availability of long-term data over 50â years. Results We find support for the presence of an extended post-reproductive stage in Asian elephants, and that post-reproductive representation and its underlying demographic rates depend on the length of study period in a long-lived animal. Conclusions The extended post-reproductive lifespan is unlikely due to physiological reproductive cessation, and may instead be driven by mating preferences or condition-dependent fertility. Our results also show that it is crucial to revisit such population measures in long-lived species as more data is collected, and if the typical lifespan of the species exceeds the initial study period. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Chapman, Simon Jackson, John Htut, Win Lummaa, Virpi Lahdenperä, Mirkka |
author_facet |
Chapman, Simon Jackson, John Htut, Win Lummaa, Virpi Lahdenperä, Mirkka |
author_sort |
Chapman, Simon |
title |
Asian elephants exhibit post-reproductive lifespans |
title_short |
Asian elephants exhibit post-reproductive lifespans |
title_full |
Asian elephants exhibit post-reproductive lifespans |
title_fullStr |
Asian elephants exhibit post-reproductive lifespans |
title_full_unstemmed |
Asian elephants exhibit post-reproductive lifespans |
title_sort |
asian elephants exhibit post-reproductive lifespans |
publisher |
figshare |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4707845.v1 https://springernature.figshare.com/collections/Asian_elephants_exhibit_post-reproductive_lifespans/4707845/1 |
genre |
toothed whale |
genre_facet |
toothed whale |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1513-1 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4707845 |
op_rights |
CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4707845.v1 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1513-1 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4707845 |
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1766218028136005632 |