Fleming can slow down aging, but only if they kiss this lifestyle

Despite the uniform appearance of the herds of flamingos, individuals live very different lifestyles. In the Camargue region, in France, some remain on their whole lives while others migrate along the Mediterranean coast. Now scientists think that these two groups differ in the way they get older.

New research published on Monday, August 25 in the journal Pnas revealed that the Flaming Migrators, who leave the Camargue each year to spend the winter in Italy, Spain or North Africa, more slowly than the flamingos non -migratory residents.

The results indicate a link between migratory behavior and aging rate, adding a new layer of complexity to one of the most central and perplexed questions – in biology: why do living creatures have an expiration date? And why do these expiration dates vary so much between different species? New research adds another layer of complexity to these questions.

“Understanding the causes of changes in the aging rate is a problem that has obsessed researchers and Polymathes philosophers since Antiquity,” said co-author Hugo Cayuela, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, in a press release. “For a long time, we thought that these variations occurred mainly between species. But recently, our perception of the problem has changed,” he added.

Same species, different lifestyle and lifespan

The growing evidence suggests that individuals within the same species often do not age at the same rate due to the genetic, behavioral or environmental variation, according to Cayuela. The study of these differences can help scientists unlock the secrets of aging. Thanks to their long lifespan and their behavioral diversity, the largest flamingos in Camargue provide an ideal model for this research.

Cayuela and her colleagues have analyzed more than 40 years of data collected by the Tour Valat Research Institute tower program. These data have described mortality and reproductive models among 1,840 flaming migratory and not migrated in the Mediterranean basin. Resident people had lower mortality rates at the start of adulthood than migratory individuals, which led to life expectations of 6.7 years on average.

The largest flamingos, however, showed 40% slower aging and a reduced mortality later in life than residents. In fact, the results suggest that aging begins a year and a half earlier in the largest Flemings of residents than migrants.

Researchers also discovered differences in reproductive models between flamingos and non -migratory. While residents had higher reproductive probabilities than migrants before the start of aging, they showed a much higher decrease in reproduction with age compared to migrants.

“While residents can reproduce more often at the start of life, this has a cost: higher mortality and a reduction in the success of reproduction later,” said the co-author Jocelyn Champagnon, Valat tour researcher, told Gizmodo in an email. “”Migrants, on the other hand, can develop early reproduction for better survival later in life. »»

Behavior shapes biology

These differences are “probably linked to a compromise between performance when young and health in old age,” said co-author Sébastien Roques, postdoctoral researcher at the French national scientific research center, in the press release. “Residents live intensely at first, but pay this pace later. Migrants, on the other hand, seem to age more slowly. ”

Together, these results suggest that migration is accompanied by certain drawbacks at the beginning of life, but reduces the rate of aging and reproductive senescence – the decline linked to the age of an individual’s ability to reproduce – suffering in life. According to the researchers, this study highlights the essential role that migration plays in shaping survival and reproduction throughout life, stressing the importance of behavioral decisions in the biology of aging.

“Our study shows that the form and rhythm of aging can be shaped by individual decisions at the beginning of life, such as migration or early reproduction”, ” Said Champagnon. Although these results cannot be directly applied to people, sHe hopes that future studies will tackle questions about how human migration influence the aging rate.