Mutation accumulation and the catastrophic senescence of the Pacific salmon

The bit-string model of biological aging is used to simulate the catastrophic senescence of the Pacific salmon. We have shown that reproduction occurring only once and at a fixed age is the only ingredient needed to explain the catastrophic senescence according to the mutation accumulation theory. Several results are presented, some of them with up to ${10}^8$ fish, showing how the survival rates in catastrophic senescence are affected by changes in the parameters of the model.