Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/K004697/1
ALL'S FAIR WHEN LOVE IS WAR: THE EVOLUTION OF LIFESPAN AND AGEING UNDER SEXUAL CONFLICT.
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor T Chapman, University of East Anglia, Biological Sciences
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor T Dalmay, University of East Anglia, Biological Sciences
- Grant held at:
- University of East Anglia, Biological Sciences
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Science Topics:
- Animal & human physiology
- Demography
- Behavioural Ecology
- Evolution & populations
- Population Genetics/Evolution
- Abstract:
- In 1992 John Gray wrote a now famous book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' (Harper Collins). In this he illustrated the many differences between males and females using the book title as the central metaphor. He imagined that the sexes are so different that one might as well consider them as originating from different planets. One of the main ideas in the book is that men and women assess or 'score' the currency of their relationship - but that they score according to different scales! This is evident, Gray suggests, when the amount of give and take within a relationship is not assessed or scored equitably. This can lead to a perceived or actual imbalance in the relationship, leading to resentment and so on. Overall, the ideas in this book proved to be a popular way of thinking about how relationships work - or not - in terms of sex differences. Whatever one thinks about the book and its legacy, the central ideas described above accord surprisingly well with evidence drawn from plants and animals. It was realised in the 1970s, for example, that rather than being co-operative ventures, the interactions between the sexes over reproduction are often characterized by conflict rather than co-operation. Hence the sexes often 'disagree' about how much energy and resources to invest in reproduction and how often to make that investment. A good example is evolutionary disagreements over how often to mate. Males often gain from mating frequently and females often do not. Furthermore, females often suffer significantly reduced lifespan from mating too frequently (an effect that we now know is also true in humans). Such lifespan reduction arising from mating frequently is not incurred to anything like the same degree in males. It has recently been realised that these sexual interactions, i.e. the effect of males on female lifespan and vice versa, could actually underlie an important and long-standing puzzle: why it is that males and females often have very different longevity. For example, human females generally live at least 4 years longer than men. Such sex differences are also extremely common in the animal world, and can occur in either direction. In experimental settings the way that lifespan is measured, and longevity 'genes' identified, is often to use non-reproductive individuals, or those that are mated early in life and then kept away from the other sex. Such tests are therefore missing something important - the effects of regular exposure to the other sex. It is now believed that the 'sexual conflicts' of the sort described by Gray and earlier considered by evolutionary biologists such as Geoff Parker, Richard Dawkins and Bill Rice can go a long way to explaining sex differences in lifespan and ageing by considering the effects of one sex upon the other. The central aim of the research proposed here is to evaluate this idea and to examine the underlying genetic basis of the differences in these necessary, but sometimes dangerous, liaisons between the sexes. The work is important because it will be the first full test of these ideas and the first to probe the genomic basis of sex differences caused by sexual conflict. Our proof of principle data gathered for this proposal show that the methods proposed can identify novel ageing genes. The work is also useful because these ideas can also be fed directly into husbandry practices for pest control in the applied sector. Overall this is an exciting and novel project that will test whether sexual conflict can lead to increased ageing and will identify the underlying genes that are responsible.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/K004697/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Standard Grant (FEC)
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Standard Grant
This grant award has a total value of £435,600
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Investigators | DI - Staff | DA - Estate Costs | DA - Other Directly Allocated | DI - T&S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £35,116 | £121,225 | £21,245 | £200,082 | £48,247 | £4,089 | £5,598 |
If you need further help, please read the user guide.