Data from: Ageing with a silver-spoon: a meta-analysis of the effect of developmental environment on senescence

What determines variation between individuals in how they senesce, and are environmental conditions experienced during development relevant to late-life performance? We report a meta-analysis of studies of wild populations to determine how the quality of the environment experienced during development affects rates of survival and reproductive senescence. From studies of 14 bird or mammal species, we calculated effect sizes for the interaction between the effects of environmental quality during development and age in predicting survival (N = 18) or reproduction (N = 30) over time in late life. We found no evidence that developmental environment affected rates of survival senescence (β mean = -1.2 x 10-4 ± 0.022SE). However, a better developmental environment was associated with slower rates of reproductive senescence in late life (β mean = 0.062 ± 0.023SE), indicating a small, but significant, "silver-spoon" effect of early-life conditions that persisted through to late life. Our results illustrate how the effects of environmental conditions during development can persist throughout life, and indicate one possible cause of phenotypic plasticity in senescence.

是什么决定了个体间衰老模式的差异？发育阶段经历的环境条件是否与晚年生存表现相关？本研究针对野生种群相关研究开展荟萃分析，旨在明确发育阶段所处环境质量如何影响个体的存活衰老与生殖衰老速率。我们基于14种鸟类或哺乳类动物的研究数据，计算了发育阶段环境质量与年龄的交互效应对晚年时期存活（样本量N=18）或生殖（样本量N=30）的预测效应量。研究未发现发育环境对存活衰老速率存在影响的证据（平均β值=-1.2×10^-4 ±0.022标准误）。然而，更优质的发育环境与晚年较慢的生殖衰老速率相关（平均β值=0.062 ±0.023标准误），这表明早年环境条件存在一种微小但显著的“银匙效应”，且该效应可延续至生命后期。本研究结果证实了发育阶段环境条件的影响可贯穿整个生命周期，并揭示了衰老表型可塑性的潜在成因之一。