Ageing

 
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AGEING: EVOLUTION & MECHANISM

Long-term field studies   |  Cellular mechanisms  |  Experimental evolution
 

Late-life declines in performance have been documented across a wide range of species, from birds to bacteria.
Evolutionary biologists are seeking to understand the marked diversity in these ageing trajectories among individuals and across taxa, while biomedical researchers probe the mechanisms that underpin ageing, with a view to identifying tractable interventions to prolong healthspan & lifespan.

We take an integrative approach, asking both evolutionary and mechanistic questions using a combination of longitudinal field studies of natural vertebrate populations and experimental studies of ageing in social microbes.

SOCIAL EFFECTS ON AGEING

We are particularly interested in the impacts of cooperation, parental age effects and reproductive conflict on the evolution and development of ageing trajectories.

MECHANISMS OF AGEING

And we investigate the mechanisms that underpin age-related deterioration in performance. We have a particular interest in the roles of telomeres and cellular senescence in eukaryotes, and protein aggregates in microbes.

MICROBIAL AGEING

We are combining microfluidics, mathematical models and experimental evolution to study the evolutionary origin of ageing in unicellular lineages.

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RECENT HIGHLIGHTS

 
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MODEL SYSTEMS:

THE SPARROW WEAVER PROJECT

40 SOCIAL GROUPS | LIFELONG PHENOTYPING | TELOMERE BIOLOGY | GENOMIC TOOLS | GENETIC PEDIGREE

My group run a long-term longitudinal field study of this extraordinary social bird in the South African Kalahari desert.
We follow all group members throughout their lives, from egg to adulthood and through to senescence. We now have over
a decade of continuous life-history, genetic, and social behavioural data for >1700 individuals rearing >900 clutches.

They are the naked mole-rats of the bird world: >80% of adult sparrow weavers never breed, but engage instead in
life-long helping of their parents. And they have similarly striking ageing biology; living long lives (>12 years) in which
the social environment shapes their rates of somatic deterioration.

We use a range of molecular tools to investigate the mechanisms of ageing in this natural population,
and the causes of individual variation in rates of somatic decline. We have a particular interest
in the impacts of social behaviour on somatic deterioration during the lifespan,
and the evolution of somatic maintenance and ageing over much longer timescales.

 

SOCIAL MICROBES

We have also recently begun to use microfluidic devices to study ageing in unicellular organisms. This approach allows us to longitudinally track the replicative histories of individual cells and their daughters, and to use experimental evolution and unrivalled molecular tools to test key hypotheses about the evolutionary origin of ageing.

EUROPEAN BADGERS

In collaboration with the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), we use their unique and ongoing 40 year longitudinal field study of the ecology and epidemiology of 40 social groups of European badgers in the UK, to ask questions about the evolution and mechanisms of ageing in a natural population of social mammals.

AND BEYOND…

We are also engaged in collaborative research on ageing in a range of other organisms, including studies of ageing in social insects and race-horses, and comparative studies across taxa testing key hypotheses about the ecological drivers of variation in senescence trajectories.

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