Biodemography is the science dealing with the integration of biological theory and

demography Demography () is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analysis examine ...

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Overview

Biodemography is a new branch of human (classical) demography concerned with understanding the complementary biological and demographic determinants of and interactions between the birth and death processes that shape individuals, cohorts and

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

s. The biological component brings human demography under the unifying theoretical umbrella of

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

, and the demographic component provides an analytical foundation for many of the principles upon which evolutionary theory rests including fitness, selection, structure, and change. Biodemographers are concerned with birth and death processes as they relate to populations in general and to humans in particular, whereas population biologists specializing in life history theory are interested in these processes only insofar as they relate to fitness and evolution. Traditionally, evolutionary biologists seldom focused on older, post-

reproductive The reproductive system of an organism, also known as the genital system, is the biological system made up of all the anatomical organs involved in sexual reproduction. Many non-living substances such as fluids, hormones, and pheromones are al ...

s because these individuals (it is typically argued) do not contribute to fitness. In contrast, biodemographers embraced research programs expressly designed to study individuals at ages beyond their reproductive years because information on these age classes will shed important light on

longevity Longevity may refer to especially long-lived members of a population, whereas ''life expectancy'' is defined Statistics, statistically as the average number of years remaining at a given age. For example, a population's life expectancy at birth ...

and

aging Ageing (or aging in American English) is the process of becoming Old age, older until death. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi; whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentiall ...

. The biological and demographic components of biodemography are not hierarchical but reciprocal in that both are primary windows on the world and are thus synergistic, complementary and mutually informing. However, there has been much more synthesis between the approaches to demographic research in recent years, such that collaboration between evolutionary, ecology and demographic researchers is increasingly common. An example of this is the "Evolutionary Demography Society", formed in 2012/2013 to increase opportunities for inter and multidisciplinary approaches to understanding how life history and ageing are related and lead to different population demographics. Biodemography is one of a small number of key subdisciplines arising from the

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

that has embraced biology such as

evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...

and

neuroeconomics Neuroeconomics is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field that seeks to explain human decision-making, the ability to process multiple alternatives and to follow through on a plan of action. It studies how economic behavior can shape our u ...

. However, unlike the others which focus more narrowly on biological sub-areas (

neurology Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...

) or concepts (evolution), biodemography has no explicit biological boundaries. As a consequence, it is an interdisciplinary concept, but maintains biological roots. The hierarchical organizations that are inherent to both biology (cell, organ, individual) and demography (individual cohort, population) form a chain in which the individual serves as the link between the lower mechanistic levels, and the higher functional levels. Biodemography serves to inform research on human aging through theory building using mathematical and statistical modeling, hypothesis testing using experimental methods, and coherence-seeking using genetics and evolutionary concepts.

References

* Gavrilov L.A., Gavrilova N.S. 2012. "Biodemography of Exceptional Longevity: Early-life and mid-life predictors of human longevity". Biodemography and Social Biology, 58(1):14–39, * Curtsinger J.W., Gavrilova N.S., Gavrilov L.A. 2006. "Biodemography of Aging and Age-Specific Mortality in Drosophila melanogaster". In: Masoro E.J. & Austad S.N.. (eds.): Handbook of the Biology of Aging, Sixth Edition. Academic Press. San Diego, CA. 261–288. * Carey, J. R., and J. W. Vaupel. 2005. "Biodemography". in D. Poston and M. Micklin, editors. Handbook of Population. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York. 625–658 * Carnes, B.A., S.J. Olshansky, and D. Grahn. 2003. "Biological evidence for limits to the duration of life". Biogerontology 4: 31–45. * Gavrilov L.A., Gavrilova N.S., Olshansky S.J., Carnes B.A. 2002. "Genealogical data and biodemography of human longevity". Social Biology, 49(3-4): 160–173. * Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S. 2001. "Biodemographic study of familial determinants of human longevity". Population: An English Selection, 13(1): 197–222. * Leonid A. Gavrilov & Natalia S. Gavrilova (1991), ''The Biology of Life Span: A Quantitative Approach''. New York: Harwood Academic Publisher, {{ISBN, 3-7186-4983-7 * National Research Council (US) Panel for the Workshop on the Biodemography of Fertility and Family Behavior; Wachter KW, Bulatao RA, editors. (2003)
Offspring: Human Fertility Behavior in Biodemographic Perspective.
Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US). doi:10.17226/10654

External links

Biodemography of Exceptional Longevity

Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

National Institute on AgingBiodemography and Social Biology
Academic journal. Demography

Overview

See also

References

Further reading

External links