Usually animals that have faster metabolic rate have shorter lifespans. It's theorized that this might be because mitochondria get damaged as they provide energy for the cells. Eventually they start leaking free radicals and destroying the cell.
Flying creatures are exception. For flight animal needs extreme amounts of energy so in theory bats should have livespan shorter than mice but that's not the case. Somehow bats manage to pass huge amounts of energy during their lifetime and still have pretty decent livespan. Evolution can figure out workarounds for even most fundamental problems if there's proper motivation. Some people think that aging and cancer are just result of evolution sloppiness cause by the lack of need for cancer-free, living longer than necessary individuals.
There's another clue that mitochondria age and get worse as they work and and are very important. All of our mitochondria come from female reproductive cell. Mitochondria from male reproductive cells are discarded, possibly because they degraded when male reproductive cell traveled meet to female reproductive cell. Female reproductive cell is inert and created very early in life and stored throughout lifetime to provide untarnished mitochondria to offspring. Male reproductive cells are created throughout life of an individual, but they get gradually less mobile when they were made by older individual. It's possible that this loss of mobility is caused by damage that mitochondria sustained during male lifetime.
It's bit speculative towards the end but makes many very interesting points. Written by Nick Lane, Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London
Flying creatures are exception. For flight animal needs extreme amounts of energy so in theory bats should have livespan shorter than mice but that's not the case. Somehow bats manage to pass huge amounts of energy during their lifetime and still have pretty decent livespan. Evolution can figure out workarounds for even most fundamental problems if there's proper motivation. Some people think that aging and cancer are just result of evolution sloppiness cause by the lack of need for cancer-free, living longer than necessary individuals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate-of-living_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion#Possible_relatio...
There's another clue that mitochondria age and get worse as they work and and are very important. All of our mitochondria come from female reproductive cell. Mitochondria from male reproductive cells are discarded, possibly because they degraded when male reproductive cell traveled meet to female reproductive cell. Female reproductive cell is inert and created very early in life and stored throughout lifetime to provide untarnished mitochondria to offspring. Male reproductive cells are created throughout life of an individual, but they get gradually less mobile when they were made by older individual. It's possible that this loss of mobility is caused by damage that mitochondria sustained during male lifetime.
I can recommend https://www.amazon.com/Oxygen-Molecule-World-Popular-Science...
It's bit speculative towards the end but makes many very interesting points. Written by Nick Lane, Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London
Another clue that mitochondria have costant damaging effect on cells probably increasing in intensity with aging http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/306179.php