Re:Body mass is correlated with lifespan
by travisp on Wednesday January 23, 2013 @11:42AM
(#5103825)
Further, it can't just be metabolism. It is unlikely that it's simply the metabolism of some tortoises, lobsters, and hydras that causes them to not actually age. It's not that they just have extra long lifespans, their death rates do not increase with age.
That being said. The article states that this relationship governs "all life" but only gives data for plants. Even there, "some variation, but not a lot" is an extremely generous representation. For the same mass, a difference in mortality rate could be 10^3 or more if I'm reading the graph correctly. While the relationship might roughly follow a trend, I wouldn't call that "not a lot" of variation. It's interesting, but I think the authors are overselling the relationship.