Short lifespan is one’s fate, long lifespan is one’s achievement: lessons from Daphnia

Studies of longevity and senescence rely on baseline life expectancy of reference genotypes measured in standardized conditions such as food level and group size. Variation in baseline lifespan data across labs and protocols and among genotypes can make longevity intervention studies difficult to compare, particularly when GxE interactions exist. Furthermore, extending the lifespan of a short-lived genotype or of any genotype under suboptimal conditions may be of a lesser theoretical and translational value than extending the maximal possible lifespan. Daphnia is rapidly becoming a model organism of choice for longevity research complementing data obtained on traditional models. In this study we report baseline longevity of several genotypes (parthenogenetic clones) of a long-lived species D. magna under a variety of laboratory protocols, aiming to document the highest possible lifespan, factors reducing it, and physiological parameters that change with age and correlate with longevity. Combining data from 25 different experiments across two labs we report strong differences among clones of different geographic origin, moderate effects of group size and medium composition on longevity, and strong GxE with respect to food level. Specifically, short-lived clones that tend to originate from small intermittent habitats show little or no caloric restriction (CR) longevity extension, while long-lived ones expand their lifespan even further when maintained at 25% of the ad libitum food. We find no evidence of any trade-offs between longevity and fecundity across clones or correlations with age-specific feeding rate. We find that in the short-lived, CR non-responsive clones show little correlation between longevity and two measures of lipid peroxidation (LPO: lipid hydroperoxides and MDA abundance). In contrast, the long-lived, CR-responsive clones show a positive longevity correlation with lipid hydroperoxide abundance at any age, and a negative correlation with MDA concentration measured at about median lifespan. This indicates differences among genotypes in longevity-related accumulation of LPO targets, efficiency of detoxification of LPO products, and/or their effects on longevity. Our observations support the hypothesis that a long lifespan can be affected by food availability and levels of oxidative damage, while genetically determined short lifespan remains short regardless. We suggest a set of condition and genotypes to be used as a reference for longevity studies in Daphnia .