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Reproductive cessation in female mammals

Author

Listed:
  • Craig Packer

    (Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota)

  • Marc Tatar

    (Brown University)

  • Anthony Collins

    (Gombe Stream Research Centre)

Abstract

In female mammals, fertility declines abruptly at an advanced age. The human menopause is one example, but reproductive cessation has also been documented in non-human primates, rodents, whales, dogs, rabbits, elephants and domestic livestock1,2,3. The human menopause has been considered an evolutionary adaptation4,5,6,7 assuming that elderly women avoid the increasing complications of continued childbirth to better nurture their current children and grandchildren. But an abrupt reproductive decline might be only a non-adaptive by-product of life-history patterns. Because so many individuals die from starvation, disease and predation, detrimental genetic traits can persist (or even be favoured) as long as their deleterious effects are delayed until an advanced age is reached, and, for a given pattern of mortality, there should be an age by which selection would be too weak to prevent the onset of reproductive senescence4,5,8. We provide a systematic test of these alternatives using field data from two species in which grandmothers frequently engage in kin-directed behaviour. Both species show abrupt age-specific changes in reproductive performance that are characteristic of menopause. But elderly females do not suffer increased mortality costs of reproduction, nor do post-reproductive females enhance the fitness of grandchildren or older children. Instead, reproductive cessation appears to result from senescence.

Suggested Citation

  • Craig Packer & Marc Tatar & Anthony Collins, 1998. "Reproductive cessation in female mammals," Nature, Nature, vol. 392(6678), pages 807-811, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:392:y:1998:i:6678:d:10.1038_33910
    DOI: 10.1038/33910
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    Cited by:

    1. Andrew M Hein & Scott A McKinley, 2013. "Sensory Information and Encounter Rates of Interacting Species," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-11, August.
    2. Mathew E. Hauer & Carl P. Schmertmann, 2020. "Population Pyramids Yield Accurate Estimates of Total Fertility Rates," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(1), pages 221-241, February.
    3. Adrian Viliami Bell & Katie Hinde & Lesley Newson, 2013. "Who Was Helping? The Scope for Female Cooperative Breeding in Early Homo," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-8, December.
    4. Li, Bo & Pang, Guodong, 2022. "Functional limit theorems for nonstationary marked Hawkes processes in the high intensity regime," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 285-339.
    5. Jan Beise & Eckart Voland, 2002. "A multilevel event history analysis of the effects of grandmothers on child mortality in a historical German population," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 7(13), pages 469-498.
    6. Jan Beise & Eckart Voland, 2002. "A multilevel event history analysis of the effects of grandmothers on child mortality in a historical German population (Krummhörn, Ostfriesland, 1720-1874)," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2002-023, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    7. Jan Beise, 2004. "The helping and the helpful grandmother - The role of maternal and paternal grandmothers in child mortality in the 17th and 18th century population of French Settlers in Quebec, Canada," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2004-004, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    8. Jack L McCormack & Kevin Arbuckle & Karen Fullard & William Amos & Hazel J Nichols, 2023. "Lack of intergenerational reproductive conflict, rather than lack of inclusive fitness benefits, explains absence of post-reproductive lifespan in long-finned pilot whales," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 34(6), pages 950-959.

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