The program will generate new large-scale demographic databases for the honey bee, wild medflies, and C. elegans and life history data from the literature on several dozen vertebrate species, introduce new statistical models for analysis of demographic data on model species; develop a novel methodology for studying aging in the wild, develop more fully the mathematical foundations of biodemography, generate new models and theories concerned with the role of intergenerational transfer and sociality in the evolution of life span, explore questions concerned with the effects of stochastic environments on the evolution life span and hazard rates, and use comparative demography to identify general principles concerning life span evolution.