> Charles Fisher, professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University, and
> his team, interpret marking experiments with tubes of a Lamellibrachia sp.
> as indicating a 250 year life span for the animals.
I have now had a look at the data and wonder if the authors are being
somewhat naive in their assumptions, and what a fisheries population
analyst would make of the size-data set. It appears from the figure that
about 40 or so animals of all sizes did not grow at all - clearly these are of
infinite age! It's all very well fitting a regression equation to the data, but
there are no confidence limits given. 250 years plus or minus what - 100,
200, 500, 1000 years?
The authors state that "even if it were assumed that individuals could
maintain their maximum growth rate throughout their lives, the larger
animals would still be over 80 years old." As the max is over 10 cm per
year a 2 metre tube would be a mere 20 years old.
Not a "longevity record" yet. Sorry Nature. Sorry chaps.
Bergquist, Derk C. , Frederick M. Williams, & Charles R. Fisher. 2000.
Longevity record for deep-sea invertebrate. The growth rate of a marine
tubeworm is tailored to different environments. -- Nature, 403(6769):499-
500.
-- Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.cri.nz>
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