· Seminarios de investigación organizados por el MNCN en colaboración con la Sociedad de Amigos del Museo (SAM) durante 2026 ·
UNDERSTANDING SENESCENCE IN WILD POPULATIONS: ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS AND UNDERLYING MECHANISMS
Ponente: Elisa Pérez Badás, Department of Evolutionary Ecology MNCN-CSIC
Fecha y hora: viernes 23 de enero de 12:00 a 13:00
Lugar: salón de actos del MNCN
Abstract: Senescence is a within-individual process that refers to the gradual, age-specific, decline in contribution to fitness, and it has been observed to occur across taxa. However, the striking variation in senescence rates found across species, populations, and individuals is not fully explained by the evolutionary theories of ageing. To explain such differences, it is crucial to understand how environmental challenges shape age-specific life-history decisions because these, in turn, drive resource allocation trade-offs. In this seminar I will give an overview of my research on the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that impact senescence in wild populations of vertebrates. I will also discuss how an integrative study of the molecular biomarkers of ageing together with long-term experimental approaches may hold the key to establish causality between the underlying processes and the senescent phenotype.
