Meeting Abstract

S2.10  Monday, Jan. 4  Physiological Evolution in Natural Populations of Snakes with Divergent Lifespans, but Negligible Senescence BRONIKOWSKI, Anne; Iowa State University abroniko@iastate.edu

Reptiles are an underutilized model for studying the biology of senescence; the existence of negligible senescence in many reptile species suggests that their study could provide intriguing insights into the biology of “not aging.” Long-term studies of natural populations of garter snakes combined with laboratory manipulative experiments will be discussed. Specifically, populations of garter snakes (Thamnophis elegans) in the Sierran Nevada range are differentiated along a slow/fast pace-of-life continuum. Individuals either: grow slow, reproduce late, and live many years; or they grow fast, reproduce early, and have short lifespan. I will present results on the sources of mortality in the wild that have likely moulded their respective life-histories. And I will provide detailed results of physiological experiments in the laboratory that reveal that the long-lived phenotype has evolved better resilience to oxidative and other stresses