Telomere dynamics in parasitic great spotted cuckoos and their magpie hosts

Abstract

Although little is known on the impact of environment on telomere length dynamics, it has been suggested to be affected by stress, lifestyle and/or life-history strategies of animals. We here compared telomere dynamics in erythrocytes of hatchlings and fledglings of the brood parasite great spotted cuckoos (Clamator glandarius) and of magpies (Pica pica), their main host in Europe. In magpie chicks, telomere length decreased from hatching to fledging, whereas no significant change in telomere length of great spotted cuckoo chicks was found. Moreover, we found interspecific differences in the association between laying date and telomere shortening. Interspecific differences in telomere shortening were interpreted as a consequence of differences in lifestyle and life-history characteristics of magpies and great spotted cuckoos. In comparison with magpies, cuckoos experience reduced sibling competition and higher access to resources and, consequently, lower stressful environmental conditions during the nestling phase. These characteristics also explain the associations between telomere attrition and environmental conditions (i.e. laying date) for magpies and the absence of association for great spotted cuckoos. These results therefore fit expectations on telomere dynamics derived from interspecific differences in lifestyle and life history of brood parasites and their bird hosts.

Telomere length and dynamics of spotless starling nestlings depend on nest-building materials used by parents

“…Laying or hatching dates are usually considered as variables reflecting territory or parental quality (Brinkhof, Cavé, Hage, & Verhulst, 1993;De Neve, Soler, Soler, & Pérez-Contreras, 2004;Moreno, 1998;Tomás et al, 2012;Verhulst & Nilsson, 2008) and, thereby, availability of resources for developing offspring. Thus, laying or hatching dates should be related to telomere dynamics of nestlings (Foote, Gault, Nasir, & Monaghan, 2011;Soler et al, 2015). We detected these linear and quadratic patterns of association between telomere dynamics of nestlings and hatching date.…”

“…We extracted DNA from blood samples using a standard chloroform-isoamyl alcohol-based protocol (see Ferraguti, Martinez-de la Puente, Ruiz, Soriguer, & Figuerola, 2013;Soler et al, 2015). Using distilled water, we adjusted DNA concentration to 20 ng/μl and samples were conserved frozen (-20 ºC) until further analyses.…”

“…Moreover, early life telomere length has strong maternal effects (Asghar, Bensch, Tarka, Hansson, & Hasselquist, 2015a) and telomere dynamics depend on abiotic (e.g. altitude, laying date, Soler et al, 2015;Stier et al, 2016) and biotic environmental conditions (e.g. nestling competition for food, Nettle et al, 2015;Reichert et al, 2014;Soler et al, 2015), including those related to parental behaviour (Sudyka et al, 2014).…”

“…altitude, laying date, Soler et al, 2015;Stier et al, 2016) and biotic environmental conditions (e.g. nestling competition for food, Nettle et al, 2015;Reichert et al, 2014;Soler et al, 2015), including those related to parental behaviour (Sudyka et al, 2014). Thus, telomere length and dynamics in nestlings are appropriate target variables for testing the effects of nest-building behaviour (e.g.…”

Egg colouration predicts brood size, telomere length and body condition of spotless starling fledglings

“…Repeatability was estimated following Yezerinac et al (1992). 2013, Soler et al 2015). DNA concentration was adjusted to 20 ng μl -1 using distilled water and conserved frozen (-20°C) until further analyses.…”