Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume 140, Issue 1, Pages 173-176Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21061
Keywords
human life history; historical demography; human longevity
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Funding
- National Institute of Aging (The Utah Study of Fertility, Longevity, and Aging) [AG022095]
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Women who have outlived child-bearing have long been described as postreproductive. But contributions they make to the survival or fertility of their descendants enhance the reproduction of their genes. Consequently, natural selection affects this characteristic stage of human life history. Grandmother effects can be measured in data sets that include births and deaths over several generations, but unmeasured covariates complicate the task. Here we focus on two complications: cohort shifts in mortality and fertility, and maternal age at death. We use the Utah Population Database to show that longevity of grandmothers may be associated with fewer grandchildren, as reported by Madrigal and Melendez-Obando (Am J Phys Anthropol 136 (2008) 223-229) for a Costa Rican sample, even when grand-mother effects are actually positive. Am J Phys Anthropol 140:173-176, 2009. (C) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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