Does evolution lead to longer lifespans?

Question

I heard that evolution does not lead to longer lifespans and was wondering if that was true or not.

Answer 1

2nd law of thermodynamics - (Entropy)
Everything progresses into chaos.

Evolution cannot bypass a universal law.

Answer 2

It depends. If longer lifespans is favorable to a certain environment at the time, yes, evolution will lead that way. If, however, shorter lifespans was what it took to adapt better to a certain environment at the time, then it would go the other way.

Be sure to identify the certain enviroment and the time.

Answer 3

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Evolution leads to longer lifespans when the survival of a population is aided by individuals living longer; evolution leads to shorter lifespans when the survival of a population is not aided by this.

In general, this is a consequence of two different strategies for the survival of a population: r (standing for "growth rate") and K (standing for "carrying capacity"). r-strategists tend to be small, have short lifespans, and have lots of offspring; they invest their energy and resources into a lot of smaller descendants. In contrast, K-strategists tend to be large, have long lifespans, and have relatively few offspring; they invest their energy and resources into a few larger descendants.

In general, populations tend more towards being r-strategists in an unstable environment. This is because r-strategists, with their greater number of offspring, and thus their greater diversity of offspring, are better-suited for rapid adaptation. Because they spend less energy on each individual organism, they are able to reproduce more and have a larger quantity of organisms. This means that each individual organism may be smaller and weaker, and thus more at risk for death, but the overall fitness of the population is higher because there is a better chance that at least some of the individuals in the population will survive.

On the other hand, when an environment stabilizes, K-strategists are dominant: their fitness is higher than r-strategists. Because K-strategists invest more time and energy into each individual offspring, they will be able to outcompete r-strategists for limited resources with their greater size, strength, and experience. Over time, once an environment stabilizes, r-strategists gradually tend to take on the traits of K-strategists in order to become more successful at acquiring these limited resources, because there is no longer any strong selective pressure on excessive breeding. And when the environment changes dramatically again, r-strategists are once again favored, and the cycle begins anew.

Right now, thanks to human intervention, the Earth is undergoing another very dramatic change, with issues like industrialization, species migration, and anthropogenic climate change causing enormous shifts in countless ecosystems. As a result, K-strategists are dying out very rapidly, and r-strategists are becoming dominant again: this is why so many endangered species you hear about are huge, and why there are so few huge species (cf. "megafauna") still around today, like the mammoth and the auroch. Evolution is thus currently favoring shorter lifespans for most species, and increased fecundity. Species will tend to fitter, until the environment stabilizes again, if they are more adaptive, which means breeding faster and breeding more, not investing each individual organism with more resources. Something similar happened after the stable environment of the dinosaurs was disrupted.

Answer 4

Perhaps it's the amazing advances in medicines that have lead to longer lifespans more than evolution.

Answer 5

The question should be...do we need to have longer lifespan for our race to survive. If we do, yes, if not, no. But it takes thousands of years for our gene to change in response to the environment.
I think we are gonna have a hard time surviving long enough for evolution effect to kick in at the rate we spoil this planet.

Answer 6

A longer lifespan has only limited evolutionary advantage. What will a creature do with that additional time? Gain more experience? Spend more time raising young? Have more young? Grow to occupy a different niche that its young? If longevity adds to success, it is favored. In humans, longevity is a survival trait through reproductive years, then it gets grey about the time it take for the last offspring to reach adulthood.

Answer 7

Evolution is the mechanism of species change. The idea behind natural selction (one part of evolution) is that certain behaviors and mutations allow members of a species to survive longer than other members and have more children. The fastest gazelle has more babies than the slower gazelle (aka dinner). Af for humans, better medical knowledge leads to longer life spans but human's complex society changes the game.

Answer 8

If you are talking about human lifespan, medical technology and science has led to that, not evolution.

In Japan and other island cultures, little old men live to be 120. That's diet & lack of stress and rush. Not evolution.

Answer 9

Evolution doesn't necessarily lead to longer life spans for individual members of a species, but it usually leads to a longer, more secure, and more successful span for the species as a whole.

Sometimes this might even mean that the species evolve so that each one has a shorter life span, as well as a shorter reproductive period- that way they can multiply rapidly.

Answer 10

Yes... yes, evolution has lead to longer lifespans.

Answer 11

Understanding is a sacrifice of sorts. If you rest your belief on evolution, it may be a good way to not be involved with things detrimental to an attention span. The smarter you get, the more it is apparent that resting belief on something is unlikley.