About.

What is Evolutionary Demography?

The Evolutionary Demography Society, founded in 2013, is a scientific organization that is focused on conceptual integration across disciplines, most notably human demography and  evolutionary biology (but also ecology, sociology, anthropology, epidemiology, public health). 

Both demography and evolutionary biology are quantitative studies of population processes. Human populations are currently undergoing profound changes in age-structure, age-patterns of mortality and life expectancy with significant societal and public health consequences.  Ever since Gompertz (1825), there is a general notion that human mortality increases with chronological age due to inescapably ever-declining physiological function. Nonetheless, across the tree of life there are diverse patterns of mortality; many species regularly experience the lowest mortality risk at the oldest ages. 

It is relevant to know which life circumstances/ causal/ mathematical mechanisms are associated with which patterns of mortality and where humans fit in? How is it that chronological age is irrelevant to physiological age in some species?  Can understanding mortality patterns of organisms where these are decoupled shed light on some aspects of human ageing as well? 
The comparative study of the evolution of such diverse "life histories," the timing of key events and differential allocation to growth, survival or reproduction, throughout the life cycle are relevant.
 
​Fertility, mortality, morbidity schedules of populations reflect the aggregate of variation in individual trajectories.  At issue for both human and nonhuman populations are the causes  and consequences of variation in these trajectories within and among populations, species, and lineages.
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Location of 6th Annual Meeting
University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL

Sponsors:
  • Office of the Vice-Provost for Research
  • College of Arts and Sciences 
  • Institute for Theoretical and Mathematical Ecology
  • Department of Biology
Miami - 3 days in January 2019
Where the most
creative quantitative minds
of our fields come
to exchange ideas.
Pre-registration is open
 Family friendly meeting
Caregivers are welcome at the meeting venue free of charge. We will have information regarding child care services and, if  funded, we hope to be able to help with some of these costs as well. The Biology Department has a newly remodeled facility dedicated providing an appropriate comfortable space for nursing mothers.
Workshops

3
Attendees

90
Keynote Speakers

17
Lightning Talks

45

 Keynote speakers ... 
Deborah A. Roach
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
“Plant aging: What do we know and what still needs to be done”​
S. Tuljapurkar
Stanford University
​"Fitness and the Demography of the Genome"
James R. Carey
University of California - Davis
“Spatial invasions of alien species conceived as decremental life table processes: Example applications in ecology”
... and more
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Carol Horvitz Nutt, University of Miami
Deborah A. Roach, University of Virginia
S. Tuljapurkar, Stanford University
James R. Carey, University of California - Davis
​Don DeAngelis, University of Miami
Michelle Afkhami, University of Miami
Chronological, physiological, actuarial, evolutionary patterns?  How, why and when do organisms age, if ever?