Abstract
ABSTRACTConditions 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.
Highlights
One of the principal aims of evolutionary ecology is to understand the mechanisms underlying individual variation in longevity and fecundity
We examined the effects of inter-annual variation in the natal environment on telomere length (TL) and telomere dynamics during postnatal development in the European storm petrel Hydrobates pelagicus Linnaeus 1758
Analysis of TL in late postnatal development demonstrated that, there was a tendency for late TL to be shorter in 2011, the estimated cohort effect was not quite significant at this stage (Table 1, model 2; t47=−1.73, P=0.089)
Summary
One of the principal aims of evolutionary ecology is to understand the mechanisms underlying individual variation in longevity and fecundity. Telomere dynamics link cellular processes with organismal ageing and optimisation of telomere length (TL) and attrition may play a major role in life-history evolution. By protecting coding sequences from attrition, telomeres play an important role in maintaining genome stability (reviewed by Verdun and Karlseder, 2007). The accumulation of senescent cells appears to be important to the ageing phenotype, thereby influencing lifespan (Campisi, 2005)
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