Explaining mortality rate plateaus.
We propose a stochastic model of aging to explain deviations from exponential growth in mortality rates commonly observed in empirical studies. Mortality rate plateaus are explained as a generic consequence of considering death in terms of first passage times for processes undergoing a random walk with drift. Simulations of populations with age-dependent distributions of viabilities agree with a wide array of experimental results. The influence of cohort size is well accounted for by the stochastic nature of the model.
Weitz
J S
JS
Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. jsweitz@segovia.mit.edu
Fraser
H B
HB
D000375:Aging; D000818:Animals; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D011157:Population Dynamics