Evolutionary theory explains why metazoan species are largely protected against the negative fitness effects of cancers. Nevertheless, cancer is often observed at high incidence across a range of species. Although there are many challenges to quantifying cancer epidemiology and assessing its causes, we claim that most modern-day cancer in animals - and humans in particular - are due to environments deviating from central tendencies of distributions that have prevailed during cancer resistance evolution. Such novel environmental conditions may be natural and/or of anthropogenic origin, and may interface with cancer risk in numerous ways, broadly classifiable as those: increasing organism body size and/or life span, disrupting processes within the organism, and affecting germline. We argue that anthropogenic influences, in particular, explain much of the present-day cancer risk across life, including in humans. Based on a literature survey of animal species and a parameterised mathematical model for humans, we suggest that combined risks of all cancers in a population beyond c. 5% can be explained to some extent by the influence of novel environments. Our framework provides a basis for understanding how natural environmental variation and human activity impact cancer risk, with potential implications for species ecology.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 17. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 18 September 2020.
All research outputs
#2,710,593
of 33,779,198 outputs
Outputs from Ecology Letters
#1,204
of 3,743 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#42,232
of 465,010 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Ecology Letters
#15
of 41 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,779,198 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,743 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 25.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 465,010 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 41 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 63% of its contemporaries.
