title: Disposable Soma Theory and the Evolution of Maternal Effects on Ageing.
abstract: Maternal effects are ubiquitous in nature and affect a wide range of offspring phenotypes. Recent research suggests that maternal effects also contribute to ageing, but the theoretical basis for these observations is poorly understood. Here we develop a simple model to derive expectations for (i) if maternal effects on ageing evolve; (ii) the strength of maternal effects on ageing relative to direct environmental effects; and (iii) the predicted relationships between environmental quality, maternal age and offspring lifespan. Our model is based on the disposable soma theory of ageing, and the key assumption is thus that mothers trade off their own somatic maintenance against investment in offspring. This trade-off affects the biological age of offspring at birth in terms of accumulated damage, as indicated by biomarkers such as oxidative stress or telomere length. We find that the optimal allocation between investment in maternal somatic investment and investment in offspring results in old mothers and mothers with low resource availability producing offspring with reduced life span. Furthermore, the effects are interactive, such that the strongest maternal age effects on offspring lifespan are found under low resource availability. These findings are broadly consistent with results from laboratory studies investigating the onset and rate of ageing and field studies examining maternal effects on ageing in the wild.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE4 5PL, United Kingdom.|Plant Sciences Group, Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1 6708PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Joost
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van den Heuvel
authors.affiliation: Edward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.|Behavioural Ecology Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sinead
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: English
authors.affiliation: Edward Grey Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.|Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Uller
mesh_terms: D032721:Adult Children; D000375:Aging / Q000235:genetics*; D060965:Clonal Evolution / Q000235:genetics*; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D006801:Humans; D008136:Longevity / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008423:Maternal Age; D008954:Models, Biological; D018384:Oxidative Stress; D012098:Reproduction / Q000235:genetics*; D016615:Telomere / Q000737:chemistry; D059505:Telomere Homeostasis