“This new study is inspired by some our earlier theoretical work applied to killer whales that suggests that age-related changes in relatedness are important for the evolution of menopause,” says Samuel Ellis, the first author of the study. “Reproduction can be thought of as a form of generalized harm as the birth of an offspring increases within-group competition for resources. Kinship dynamics — the ways in which local relatedness changes over an individual’s lifetime — are one way that menopause could be favored, because older females are more inclined to cease reproduction to not harm their group mates than younger females. Here we wanted to generalize this concept to both sexes, and to other species without menopause.”
Source: Ecology - nature.com
