Evolution of the Age Structured Populations and Demography

TL;DR

This paper presents a Monte Carlo simulation of age-structured population evolution based on the Penna model, exploring genetic aging, sex chromosome evolution, and effects of environmental and social factors.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation framework incorporating genetic, environmental, and social factors to study population aging and sex chromosome evolution.

Findings

Genes expressed after reproductive age accumulate more mutations.

Sex chromosome evolution depends on mating and caregiving behaviors.

Environmental noise influences genotype-phenotype relations and population dynamics.

Abstract

We describe the simulation method of modelling the population evolution using Monte Carlo based on the Penna model. Individuals in the populations are represented by their diploid genomes. Genes expressed after the minimum reproduction age are under a weaker selection pressure and accumulate more mutations than those expressed before the minimum reproduction age. The generated gradient of defective genes determines the ageing of individuals and age-structured populations are very similar to the natural, sexually reproducing populations. The genetic structure of a population depends on the way how the random death affects the population. The improvement of the medical care and healthier life styles are responsible for the increasing of the life expectancy of humans during the last century. Introducing a noise into the relations between the genotype, phenotype, and environment, it is possible to simulate some other effects, like the role of immunological systems and a mother care. One of the most interesting results was the evolution of sex chromosomes. Placing the male sex determinants on one chromosome of a pair of sex chromosomes is enough to condemn it for shrinking if the population is panmictic (random-mating is assumed). If males are indispensable for taking care of their offspring and have to be faithful to their females, the male sex chromosome does not shrink.