Abstract

Natural selection can favour health at youth or middle age (high reproductive value) over health at old age (low reproductive value). This means, all else being equal, selection for cancer suppression should dramatically drop after reproductive age. However, in species with significant parental investment, the capacity to enhance inclusive fitness may increase the reproductive value of older individuals or even those past reproductive age. Variation in parental investment levels could therefore contribute to variation in cancer susceptibility across species. In this article, we describe a simple model and framework for the evolution of cancer suppression with varying levels of parental investment and use this model to make testable predictions about variation in cancer suppression across species. This model can be extended to show that selection for cancer suppression is stronger in species with cooperative breeding systems and intergenerational transfers. We consider three cases that can select for cancer suppression into old age: (i) extended parental care that increases the survivorship of their offspring, (ii) grandparents contributing to higher fecundity of their children and (iii) cooperative breeding where helpers forgo reproduction or even survivorship to assist parents in having higher fecundity.

Highlights

  • There is more to Peto’s paradox than just body size

  • We suggest that parental investment, intergenerational transfers, cooperative breeding and other inclusive fitness effects hold the key for how natural selection favours continued cancer suppression into older age classes including post-reproductives

  • We used life-history models to show that selection for cancer suppression is higher in species with cooperative breeding systems and intergenerational transfers

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Summary

Introduction

There is more to Peto’s paradox than just body size. As the papers in this volume and others suggest, low fecundity, low reproductive competitiveness [1], delayed reproduction and long reproductive lifespans favour the evolution of greater cancer suppression in multi-cellular organisms. We suggest that parental investment, intergenerational transfers, cooperative breeding and other inclusive fitness effects hold the key for how natural selection favours continued cancer suppression into older age classes including post-reproductives. Other useful life-history properties relevant to the discussion of the evolution of cancer suppression include net reproductive rate, age-specific reproductive value and generation time, respectively: ð

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