A set of test life tables for theoretical gerontology

Prediction of life tables, which provide the most empirical information available about the statistical properties of aging, provides a rigorous test for any theory of aging as manifested at the organismic level of biological organization. For this purpose, a set of test tables for the wild boar (Sus scrofa), domestic sheep (Ovis aries), Dall sheep (Ovis dalli dalli), African buffalo (Syncerus cafer), and hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) is reconstructed from primary data taken from the literature. The tables, which exhibit a broad range of survival characteristics, satisfy the criteria that (1) the data are statistically sound, (2) their survival functions are concave, except for the limiting case of the convex wild boar function, and (3) the species are natural populations (i.e., are in the same environment in which they evolved). Each test table is reported numerically and as a least-squares regression formula for the age-specific mortality rate over a given range of age.