Cargando…
Variation in early-life telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird: links to environmental conditions and survival
Conditions experienced during early life can have profound consequences for both short- and long-term fitness. Variation in the natal environment has been shown to influence survival and reproductive performance of entire cohorts in wild vertebrate populations. Telomere dynamics potentially provide...
Autores principales: | , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Company of Biologists
2015
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4376192/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25617465 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.104265 |
_version_ | 1782363701070790656 |
---|---|
author | Watson, Hannah Bolton, Mark Monaghan, Pat |
author_facet | Watson, Hannah Bolton, Mark Monaghan, Pat |
author_sort | Watson, Hannah |
collection | PubMed |
description | Conditions experienced during early life can have profound consequences for both short- and long-term fitness. Variation in the natal environment has been shown to influence survival and reproductive performance of entire cohorts in wild vertebrate populations. Telomere dynamics potentially provide a link between the early environment and long-term fitness outcomes, yet we know little about how the environment can influence telomere dynamics in early life. We found that environmental conditions during growth have an important influence on early-life telomere length (TL) and attrition in nestlings of a long-lived bird, the European storm petrel Hydrobates pelagicus. Nestlings reared under unfavourable environmental conditions experienced significantly greater telomere loss during postnatal development compared with nestlings reared under more favourable natal conditions, which displayed a negligible change in TL. There was, however, no significant difference in pre-fledging TL between cohorts. The results suggest that early-life telomere dynamics could contribute to the marked differences in life-history traits that can arise among cohorts reared under different environmental conditions. Early-life TL was also found to be a significant predictor of survival during the nestling phase, providing further evidence for a link between variation in TL and individual fitness. To what extent the relationship between early-life TL and mortality during the nestling phase is a consequence of genetic, parental and environmental factors is currently unknown, but it is an interesting area for future research. Accelerated telomere attrition under unfavourable conditions, as observed in this study, might play a role in mediating the effects of the early-life environment on later-life performance. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4376192 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | The Company of Biologists |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-43761922015-04-07 Variation in early-life telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird: links to environmental conditions and survival Watson, Hannah Bolton, Mark Monaghan, Pat J Exp Biol Research Article Conditions experienced during early life can have profound consequences for both short- and long-term fitness. Variation in the natal environment has been shown to influence survival and reproductive performance of entire cohorts in wild vertebrate populations. Telomere dynamics potentially provide a link between the early environment and long-term fitness outcomes, yet we know little about how the environment can influence telomere dynamics in early life. We found that environmental conditions during growth have an important influence on early-life telomere length (TL) and attrition in nestlings of a long-lived bird, the European storm petrel Hydrobates pelagicus. Nestlings reared under unfavourable environmental conditions experienced significantly greater telomere loss during postnatal development compared with nestlings reared under more favourable natal conditions, which displayed a negligible change in TL. There was, however, no significant difference in pre-fledging TL between cohorts. The results suggest that early-life telomere dynamics could contribute to the marked differences in life-history traits that can arise among cohorts reared under different environmental conditions. Early-life TL was also found to be a significant predictor of survival during the nestling phase, providing further evidence for a link between variation in TL and individual fitness. To what extent the relationship between early-life TL and mortality during the nestling phase is a consequence of genetic, parental and environmental factors is currently unknown, but it is an interesting area for future research. Accelerated telomere attrition under unfavourable conditions, as observed in this study, might play a role in mediating the effects of the early-life environment on later-life performance. The Company of Biologists 2015-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4376192/ /pubmed/25617465 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.104265 Text en © 2015. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Watson, Hannah Bolton, Mark Monaghan, Pat Variation in early-life telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird: links to environmental conditions and survival |
title | Variation in early-life telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird: links to environmental conditions and survival |
title_full | Variation in early-life telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird: links to environmental conditions and survival |
title_fullStr | Variation in early-life telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird: links to environmental conditions and survival |
title_full_unstemmed | Variation in early-life telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird: links to environmental conditions and survival |
title_short | Variation in early-life telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird: links to environmental conditions and survival |
title_sort | variation in early-life telomere dynamics in a long-lived bird: links to environmental conditions and survival |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4376192/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25617465 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.104265 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT watsonhannah variationinearlylifetelomeredynamicsinalonglivedbirdlinkstoenvironmentalconditionsandsurvival AT boltonmark variationinearlylifetelomeredynamicsinalonglivedbirdlinkstoenvironmentalconditionsandsurvival AT monaghanpat variationinearlylifetelomeredynamicsinalonglivedbirdlinkstoenvironmentalconditionsandsurvival |