ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD

(Department of Sociology)

Population Dynamics (4698)

Level: Postgraduate

Semester: Spring, 2022

Roll No:CC515548
 Q1. Define life span and longevity. Explain the significance of life span and longevity in
demographic study.

Life span is the final term from the definition requiring clarification. The simplest
interpretation of this term is that interesting and important psychological changes
occur throughout life, but numerous challenging and elucidating implications have
been derived from this principle (e.g., Baltes et al. 1999). Developmental
psychologists focus their theoretical, methodological, and intervention efforts during
one or more common phases of the life span, such as childhood, adolescence,
midlife, or late life. Historically, many developmental psychologists have emphasized
the roughly 15 percent of the typical life span known as infancy and childhood. A
smaller but growing cadre of scholars concentrate on changes occurring during the
approximately 10 percent of the life span known as adolescence. The remaining 75
percent of the typical life span constitutes the years of adulthood, ranging from
young through the middle to the oldest ages. Unsurprisingly, telling the whole tale of
development across the life span in any phenomenon—much less all psychological
phenomena—is not the goal of life span developmental scientists. From the
perspective that much developmentally interesting phenomena occur at all points of
the life span, all developmental scholars contribute to a picture that will eventually be
more comprehensive and coherent.

Probably the strongest environmental stimulus that affects lifespan is environmental

temperature. Adult flies cultured at 18°C live more than twice as long as those
cultured at 25°C. Various mild stressors, including heat shock (37°C for less than 1
hour), cold stress, hypergravity, and low levels of irradiation, have been shown to
extend lifespan. It has been proposed that mild stressors may induce protective
systems that will be beneficial for forthcoming events. However, the effects could be
secondary in some cases, as some stressors such as irradiation have negative
effects on reproduction, which alone can extend lifespan.
Dietary yeast is important in survival and reproduction in adult Drosophila. In the
absence of yeast, Drosophila arrest reproduction and increase mortality in both
males and females (Good and Tatar, 2001). Dietary restriction extends lifespan in a
variety of organisms including Drosophila. The females have greater responses to
dietary restriction, even in sterile or ovaryless females (Mair et al., 2004). The
maximum extension of lifespan in females is achieved at a less severe level of
dietary restriction than in males (Magwere et al., 2004).
Prevention of flight activity has been shown to extend lifespan in blowflies (Yan and
Sohal, 2000) as well as in Drosophila (Tapi Magwere, personal communications). In
accord with this, mutant flies that move more than normal (shaker mutants) have
shorter lifespan (Trout and Kaplan, 1970).