AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -One important factor is body size with larger animals, on average, living longer than smaller ones. In some species, environmental factors like temperature also influence how long animals live, with a lower body temperature generally being associated with a longer lifespan.

Detailed explanation-2: -Humans have evolved much longer lifespans than the great apes, which rarely exceed 50 years. Since 1800, lifespans have doubled again, largely due to improvements in environment, food, and medicine that minimized mortality at earlier ages.

Detailed explanation-3: -According to evolutionary theory, organisms that live for long periods manage to avoid disease, predation and accidents due to their defence mechanism and lifestyle. These organisms are likely to have genes that code for a slow aging process, which often means good levels of cellular repair are achieved.

Detailed explanation-4: -Bigger animals live longer. The scaling exponent for the relationship between lifespan and body mass is between 0.15 and 0.3. Bigger animals also expend more energy, and the scaling exponent for the relationship of resting metabolic rate (RMR) to body mass lies somewhere between 0.66 and 0.8.