Meeting Abstract
An age-dependent decline in survival, called senescence, is a ubiquitous trait in animals. Due to their reduced metabolism, specialized adaptations, and extended longevity, ectotherms such as turtles are thought to have low rates of senescence relative to other animals. Using long-term mark-recapture datasets and a hierarchical senescence model that incorporates growth, we compared the rates of senescence of turtles and snakes for the first time. We found that senescence rates vary both within and among species and we discuss the importance of using long-term data from wild populations to study age-dependent changes in survival. Estimating patterns of senescence is just one practical application of jointly estimating survival and growth; our model can also be used to improve understanding of life-history trade-offs between growth and survival.
