Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Life Histories01:29

Life Histories

16.4K
Overview
16.4K
Energy Budgets00:51

Energy Budgets

9.9K
Organisms must balance energy intake with the energy required for growth, maintenance and reproduction. These trade-offs result in a variety of survivorship and reproductive strategies, including semelparity and iteroparity. Semelparous species, like annual plants, have only one reproductive episode in their lifetimes and consequently have short lifespans. Iteroparous species, by contrast, have many reproductive events during their lifetimes but have relatively few offspring. These two...
9.9K
Applications of Life Tables01:22

Applications of Life Tables

439
Life tables are versatile across various fields, providing a quantitative basis for analyzing mortality and survival rates. Whether used by demographers, actuaries, epidemiologists, or sociologists, life tables offer valuable insights into the dynamics of life and death, facilitating informed decisions in public health, insurance, conservation, and beyond. Their broad applicability highlights the interconnectedness of demographic data with practical outcomes in everyday life and strategic...
439
Population Growth00:57

Population Growth

23.2K
Population size is dynamic, increasing with birth rates and immigration, and decreasing with death rates and emigration. In ideal conditions with unlimited resources, populations can increase exponentially, which plots as a J-shaped growth rate curve of population size against time. This type of curve is characteristic of newly-introduced invasive species, or populations that have suffered catastrophic declines and are rebounding.
23.2K
Conservation of Declining Populations02:07

Conservation of Declining Populations

11.6K
Conservation of declining population focuses on ways of detecting, diagnosing, and halting a population decline. The approach uses methods to prevent populations from going extinct.
11.6K
Life Tables01:22

Life Tables

693
A life table is a statistical tool that summarizes the mortality and survival patterns of a population, providing detailed insights into the likelihood of survival or death across different age intervals within a cohort. By organizing data on survival probabilities and mortality rates, life tables offer a clear snapshot of population dynamics over time. They are extensively used in demography, public health, actuarial science, and ecology to analyze life expectancy, design health interventions,...
693

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

How does the body know how old it is? Introducing the epigenetic clock hypothesis.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2013
Same author

Telomere biology: cancer firewall or aging clock?

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2013
Same author

Adaptive aging in the context of evolutionary theory.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2012
Same author

Demographic evidence for adaptive theories of aging.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2012
Same author

Multiply diffracted light in the Czerny-Turner spectrometer.

Applied optics·2010
Same journal

Multidirectional Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Proteins on Amyloid Transformation of Alpha-Synuclein.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2026
Same journal

Dependence of Antioxidant and Transcriptional Responses to Periodic Hypoxia on Sex and Age in Rats.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2026
Same journal

Effect of the PPARγ Agonist Pioglitazone on Rat Behavior and Expression of Epileptogenesis-Related Genes during the Latent Phase of the Lithium-Pilocarpine Model.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2026
Same journal

A Conjugate of Aminoadamantane and Tetrahydro-γ-Carboline Inhibits Accumulation of Mutant α-Synuclein A53T in the Cellular Model of Proteinopathy.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2026
Same journal

Immunoinflammatory Markers in Patients with Affective Disorders: Genetic Polymorphisms, Peripheral Cytokine Levels, and Expression of IL-1β, IL-13, TNF-β, and TGF-α in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2026
Same journal

Method for Individual Assessment of Human Cerebral Cortex Activity by a Combined Use of Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy of Glutamate and BOLD Signal Method.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 6, 2026

Surveying Low-Cost Methods to Measure Lifespan and Healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans
10:08

Surveying Low-Cost Methods to Measure Lifespan and Healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans

Published on: May 18, 2022

5.5K

Post-reproductive life span and demographic stability.

J J Mitteldorf1, C Goodnight

  • 1Dept of Biology, Life Sciences Building, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA. josh@mathforum.org.

Biochemistry. Biokhimiia
|November 16, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Many animals live past their reproductive years, a phenomenon explained by a new theory. Post-reproductive life spans may evolve to stabilize predator-prey dynamics and prevent population extinctions.

More Related Videos

Measurement of Lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster
10:00

Measurement of Lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster

Published on: January 7, 2013

34.2K
Measurement of Survival Time in Brachionus Rotifers: Synchronization of Maternal Conditions
05:18

Measurement of Survival Time in Brachionus Rotifers: Synchronization of Maternal Conditions

Published on: July 22, 2016

7.8K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 6, 2026

Surveying Low-Cost Methods to Measure Lifespan and Healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans
10:08

Surveying Low-Cost Methods to Measure Lifespan and Healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans

Published on: May 18, 2022

5.5K
Measurement of Lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster
10:00

Measurement of Lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster

Published on: January 7, 2013

34.2K
Measurement of Survival Time in Brachionus Rotifers: Synchronization of Maternal Conditions
05:18

Measurement of Survival Time in Brachionus Rotifers: Synchronization of Maternal Conditions

Published on: July 22, 2016

7.8K

Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Ecology
  • Demography

Background:

  • Post-reproductive life span is observed across diverse species, posing a challenge to traditional life history evolution theories.
  • The "grandmother hypothesis" offers an explanation but is limited to social mammals.
  • A broader ecological explanation for extended post-reproductive life is needed.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose and explore a novel hypothesis for the evolution of post-reproductive life span.
  • To investigate the role of post-reproductive individuals in stabilizing population dynamics.

Main Methods:

  • Theoretical modeling of predator-prey population dynamics.
  • Analysis of life history traits and age-structured populations.
  • Consideration of senescence and reproductive status in older individuals.

Main Results:

  • Post-reproductive individuals can buffer populations against extinction by shielding vulnerable juveniles from predation.
  • This stabilizing effect is enhanced when older individuals are no longer fertile.
  • The proposed mechanism offers a general explanation applicable beyond social mammals.

Conclusions:

  • Post-reproductive life span may be an evolved trait for demographic stabilization in predator-prey systems.
  • This ecological role provides a compelling alternative to kin selection-based explanations.
  • Further empirical research is needed to validate the proposed mechanism across various taxa.