Researchers from Queen's University in Belfast and Tel Aviv University in Israel conducted one of the most comprehensive studies to date, aimed at obtaining complete and reliable information on what affects the life expectancy of all living vertebrates in the world.
The data obtained not only cast doubt on the long-accepted theory of life expectancy, but also offer new evidence of the enormous impact of global warming on life expectancy among cold-blooded animals, that is, reptiles and amphibians.
Theory of "standard of living"
The theory of "standard of living" has long been used as an explanation of the aging of organisms. According to her, life expectancy directly depends on the metabolic rate. In other words, how quickly, in terms of the speed of the internal functions of the body, species live and how often they reproduce, or, conversely, how “slowly” in terms of these internal functions of the body they live and how “slowly” they multiply, all of this will determine how long they live. This explains why some vertebrates, such as some lizards, can live only a few years, while others, such as turtles, can live for more than a century and a half. This theory was proposed more than 100 years ago, but so far it has not been verified globally on all terrestrial vertebrates.
Rebuttal
Researchers from Royal and Tel Aviv Universities have analyzed data from more than 4, 100 terrestrial vertebrate species from all over the world in order to test the prevailing theory of “standard of living”. They found that living standards do not affect the rate of aging, rejecting the previously thought to be true relationship between metabolic rate and life expectancy.
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New hypothesis
A study published February 14 in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography showed that the aging rate of amphibians and reptiles is associated with high temperatures. These findings led researchers to put forward an alternative hypothesis: the higher the ambient temperature, the higher the standard of living. And this, in turn, leads to faster aging and reduced life expectancy.
Dr. Daniel Pinqueira-Donoso, co-author and lecturer in evolution and ecology at the School of Biological Sciences at Queen's University of Belfast, explains: “Our findings can be crucial to our understanding of the factors that contribute to extinction, especially in the modern age when we are faced with a global reduction in biodiversity when cold-blooded animals are at particular risk. We now know that the life expectancy of reptiles and amphibians is related to the ambient temperature, and we can expect a further decrease in their life expectancy as the temperature continues to increase due to global warming."
