Lieshout, S.H.J., Sparks, A.M., Bretman, A. et al. (5 more authors) (2021) Estimation of environmental, genetic and parental age at conception effects on telomere length in a wild mammal. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 34 (2). pp. 296-308. ISSN 1010-061X
Abstract
Understanding individual variation in fitness-related traits requires separating the environmental and genetic determinants. Telomeres are protective caps at the ends of chromosomes that are thought to be a biomarker of senescence as their length predicts mortality risk and reflect the physiological consequences of environmental conditions. The relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to individual variation in telomere length is, however, unclear, yet important for understanding its evolutionary dynamics. In particular, the evidence for transgenerational effects, in terms of parental age at conception, on telomere length is mixed. Here, we investigate the heritability of telomere length, using the ‘animal model’, and parental age at conception effects on offspring telomere length in a wild population of European badgers (Meles meles). Although we found no heritability of telomere length and low evolvability (<0.001), our power to detect heritability was low and a repeatability of 2% across individual lifetimes provides a low upper limit to ordinary narrow-sense heritability. However, year (32%) and cohort (3%) explained greater proportions of the phenotypic variance in telomere length, excluding qPCR plate and row variances. There was no support for cross-sectional or within-individual parental age at conception effects on offspring telomere length. Our results indicate a lack of transgenerational effects through parental age at conception and a low potential for evolutionary change in telomere length in this population. Instead, we provide evidence that individual variation in telomere length is largely driven by environmental variation in this wild mammal.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 European Society For Evolutionary Biology. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | heritability; parental age at conception; senescence; telomere length; wild mammal |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Natural Environment Research Council NE/B504106/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 19 Nov 2021 10:23 |
Last Modified: | 10 Feb 2023 14:11 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/jeb.13728 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:180647 |