Geriatric insects

It turns out that even wild insects ‘get old’ – losing some of their physical abilities – before they die. The very existence of ageing, in the sense of physical decline, has been a phenomenon that at first was thought to be confined to humans, but we now realise it is likely to apply to most life-forms.  Insects are used to study ageing in laboratories, but it wasn’t clear whether they only reach ‘old age’ because they are protected from a harsh natural environment.   We recorded reproductive effort, ageing and survival in our wild crickets over 10 years. ​

There was no evidence that some crickets ‘live fast and die young’ compared to others, but it was clear that those that put more energy into reproduction early in life declined faster as they aged. Crickets that invested more in reproduction showed signs of ‘ageing’ – chirping less and losing more fights.

Read our paper on this work here