Type II survivorship implies which pattern of death risk across ages?

• A. Death risk is constant across ages
• B. Death risk decreases with age
• C. Death risk increases with age
• D. Death risk is highly variable with age

Answer: (A)

Type II survivorship reflects a constant mortality risk across age. In these organisms, the chance of dying in a given time period is roughly the same no matter how old the individual is. If you plot the number of individuals surviving versus age, the decline is steady, not steeper in old age or younger age. This contrasts with patterns where mortality rises with age (Type I) or is very high early on and then drops for the few that survive (Type III). So the death risk across ages is constant.