In nature, aging is a very extravagant act, and most animals cannot survive to age and die for a variety of reasons. What's going on? Why do animals die when they lose the ability to mate?
Animals die if they cannot survive before they lose their ability to mate, which is the result of natural selection, which is not a longevity gene, but a genetic gene with strong fertility.
In Australia, marsupials, in the first estrus season of sexual maturity, male marsupials will seize every opportunity to mate with females, even if the internal organs are incomplete, they will lose hair, blind in both eyes, and die, they will not stop.
Because they have a lot of male testosterone in their bodies, this hormone can help them be more attractive to the male, but also damage their health, so they can only mate once to die, while the female cloth socks can live for several years. Because.......
Supposedly, this male hormone agent should allow life to die early and be eliminated, but in fact, on the contrary, individuals without this male hormone are eliminated.
This is because testosterone can make organisms die early, but also helps organisms to mate, organisms can pass on their own genetic material to their offspring, so this hormone agent is transported to their offspring. Conversely, individuals with less male hormones are at a disadvantage in sexual competition, so they can't find a mate, can't communicate their genetic information to their offspring, and are therefore eliminated by natural selection.
That is, when natural selection selects genetic factors, it selects genetic factors that are beneficial to the survival of the organism, but the latter is more predisposed than mating.
In addition to this, natural selection is the deliberate death of individuals who have lost the ability to mate. For example, once the ability to mate is lost, bodily functions decline and are easily preyed upon by carnivores, and aging carnivores die because they cannot adequately prey on food.
For example, when the Lion King did not lose the ability to mate, his physical function was worse than that of the young male lion, and he was banned by the new Lion King, and eventually wandered on the grassland.
Insufficient energy
The death of individuals who have lost the ability to mate is actually due to the limited energy on Earth. Limited energy cannot provide unlimited biological needs.
Since energy cannot supply all biological needs, the elimination of aging individuals will help the survival of the individual population. This is because the aging body consumes energy, and secondly, the aging individual has no reproductive ability and cannot continue the individual group.
In fact, almost all living things cannot survive until they age, and before that, they may be eliminated by nature due to illness and poor physical fitness, or for various reasons.
Why do people live longer?
The reason why people can live a long life is actually related to taking care of children. There is a hypothesis known as the "grandmother hypothesis" abroad, scientists are primitive tribes in Guinea, Africa, and found that local grandmothers help young daughters take care of their children, young daughters can continue to get pregnant for a short period of time, and the rate at which individual groups reproduce their offspring is very fast.
In addition, the family that takes care of the grandmother can get more energy. Grandmothers cannot reproduce their children, but her presence can also allow daughters to go out in search of food, and the speed of finding food is very fast, which can improve the survival rate of children and grandchildren.
According to scientists' observations, in the primitive tribes of Africa, families with grandmothers have a higher survival rate and can get more energy than the descendants of families without grandmothers.
Therefore, in the human individual group, the long-lived individual does not drag the family, but helps the reproduction of the individual group. As a result, several short-lived individuals were eliminated.
In addition, after human beings enter the agricultural society, they can get more energy, and the family is also settled, and the elderly can also get proper care, which improves the overall life expectancy of human beings.
Now, modern medical conditions and a safe living environment have made human life expectancy continue to increase, and even if we lose the ability to produce offspring, we can survive for a long time.
summary
If the organism loses the ability to mate, it will die, because if it loses the ability to mate, the organism's physical function will decline, and it is easy to be preyed upon by predators, and it cannot prey on enough energy and die. For example, lions can only survive for 10-15 years in the wild, but can survive for about 20 years in captivity.
The reason why humans live a long life is because they are accustomed to the use of tools by humans, and animals and plants provide a stable source of energy for humans. In addition to human medical conditions and living environment, human beings can survive for a long time after losing their ability to reproduce.