Independence of Temperature of the Rate of Ageing in Drosophila subobscura

Abstract

THE fact that in poikilotherms an increase in temperature reduces the life-span has naturally been taken as showing that the rates of ageing processes, like those of chemical reactions, are dependent on temperature. If so, an animal which is kept for an appreciable part of its life-span at a high temperature and is then transferred to a low temperature would be expected to die at a chronologically younger age than a similar animal kept continuously at the lower temperature. It has already been reported^1,2 that this expectation is not realized in the case of D. subobscura. Flies kept when young at 30° C. for periods equal to about half their expectation of life at that temperature and then transferred to 20° C. died at the same chronological age as did flies kept continuously at 20° C.