eprintid: 10095203
rev_number: 16
eprint_status: archive
userid: 608
dir: disk0/10/09/52/03
datestamp: 2020-04-23 13:35:13
lastmod: 2021-09-25 23:31:40
status_changed: 2020-04-23 13:35:13
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Galimov, ER
creators_name: Gems, D
title: Shorter life and reduced fecundity can increase colony fitness in virtual Caenorhabditis elegans
ispublished: inpress
divisions: UCL
divisions: B02
divisions: C08
divisions: D09
divisions: F99
keywords: C. elegans ecology, adaptive death, evolution of aging, evolutionary modelling, inclusive fitness
note: Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Aging Cell published by the Anatomical Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
abstract: In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, loss of function of many genes leads to increases in lifespan, sometimes of a very large magnitude. Could this reflect the occurrence of programmed death that, like apoptosis of cells, promotes fitness? The notion that programmed death evolves as a mechanism to remove worn out, old individuals in order to increase food availability for kin is not supported by classic evolutionary theory for most species. However, it may apply in organisms with colonies of closely related individuals such as C. elegans in which largely clonal populations subsist on spatially limited food patches. Here, we ask whether food competition between nonreproductive adults and their clonal progeny could favor programmed death by using an in silico model of C. elegans. Colony fitness was estimated as yield of dauer larva propagules from a limited food patch. Simulations showed that not only shorter lifespan but also shorter reproductive span and reduced adult feeding rate can increase colony fitness, potentially by reducing futile food consumption. Early adult death was particularly beneficial when adult food consumption rate was high. These results imply that programmed, adaptive death could promote colony fitness in C. elegans through a consumer sacrifice mechanism. Thus, C. elegans lifespan may be limited not by aging in the usual sense but rather by apoptosis‐like programmed death.
date: 2020-04-16
official_url: https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.13141
oa_status: green
full_text_type: pub
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
verified: verified_manual
elements_id: 1777104
doi: 10.1111/acel.13141
lyricists_name: Gems, David
lyricists_id: DGEMS65
actors_name: Flynn, Bernadette
actors_id: BFFLY94
actors_role: owner
full_text_status: public
publication: Aging Cell
article_number: e13141
event_location: England
citation:        Galimov, ER;    Gems, D;      (2020)    Shorter life and reduced fecundity can increase colony fitness in virtual Caenorhabditis elegans.                   Aging Cell      , Article e13141.  10.1111/acel.13141 <https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.13141>.    (In press).    Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10095203/1/acel.13141.pdf