Mutation accumulation and the catastrophic senescence of the Pacific salmon

摘要

The bit-string model of biological aging is used to simulate the catastrophic senescence of the Pacific salmon. We have shown that reproduction occurring only once and at a fixed age is the only ingredient needed to explain the catastrophic senescence according to the mutation accumulation theory. Several results are presented, some of them with up to 108 fish, showing how the survival rates in catastrophic senescence are affected by changes in the parameters of the model.