The influence of phylogeny and life history on telomere lengths and telomere rate of change among bird species: A meta‐analysis

Criscuolo, François; Dobson, F. Stephen; Schull, Quentin

doi:10.1002/ece3.7931

Cited by 13 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 116 publications

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“…Tricola et al (2018) found that telomere length was not strongly influenced by the phylogenetic pattern, but telomere rate of change (TROC) was. Alternatively, Criscuolo et al (2021) found that neither adult telomere length nor TROC showed a strong phylogenetic pattern in a sample of, a corrected sample size of 52 bird species, a different result that needs to be explained.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…However, longevity and body mass are known to show strong covariance (Dantzer and Fletcher 2015), and thus may be collinear. The analyses of more bird species by Criscuolo et al (2021), however, found no significant association of adult telomere length and either body size or the pace of life, with or without inclusion of the phylogenetic pattern in the analyses, though they did not specifically examine longevity and its association with telomere length.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The purpose of our present study was to examine associations of telomere length and TROC on the one hand, and body size and longevity on the other hand in birds. We did this using a restricted sample size of 30 of the bird species (see below for justification) reviewed in the meta-analysis of Criscuolo et al (2021). We first asked whether any of the variables showed evidence of strong phylogenetic pattern, using the Bayesian meta-analysis approach of Hadfield and Nakagawa (2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Longevity and body size are closely associated in birds (e.g. , Bennett and Owens 2002;Dantzer and Fletcher 2015;Criscuolo et al 2021). Larger species reflect many aspects of life histories that covary over evolutionary time, in part because it takes longer to grow and survive to a large body size (Dobson 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, we examined variation in longevity that was strongly associated with body size ("mass-predicted lifespan"), and longevity that was statistically independent of body size ("mass-independent lifespan"). The latter reflects changes in lifespan that can be described as varying with the pace of life (Dobson and Oli 2007;Criscuolo et al 2021). We compared both of these aspects of lifespan to telomere length and TROC, with and without statistical adjustment for influences of phylogeny.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Two aspects of longevity are associated with the rate of loss of telomeres in birds

Dobson

Schull

Criscuolo

2022

Preprint

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Telomeres, the terminal repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of linear chromosomes, have strong associations with longevity in some major taxa. Longevity has been linked to rate of decline in telomere length in birds and mammals, and absolute telomere length seems to be associated with body mass in mammals. Using a phylogenetic comparative method and 30 species of birds, we examined longevity (reflected by maximum lifespan), absolute telomere length, the rate of change in telomere length (TROC), and body mass (often strongly associated with longevity) to ascertain their degree of association. We divided lifespan into two life-history components, one reflected by body size (measured as body mass), and a component that was statistically independent of body mass. While both lifespan and body mass were strongly associated with a family tree of the species (viz., the phylogeny of the species), telomere measures were not. Telomere length was not significantly associated with longevity or body mass, or our measure of mass-independent lifespan. TROC, however, was strongly associated with mass-independent lifespan, but to a lesser degree with body mass. Our results supported an association of TROC and longevity, in particular longevity that was independent of body size and part of the pace-of-life syndrome of life histories.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Two aspects of longevity are associated with the rate of loss of telomeres in birds

Dobson

Schull

Criscuolo

2022

Preprint

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Why and when should organisms elongate their telomeres? Elaborations on the ‘excess resources elongation’ and ‘last resort elongation’ hypotheses

Gómez‐Blanco,

Tobler,

Hasselquist

2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Telomere length and telomere shortening are thought to be critical cellular attributes and processes that are related to an individual's life span and fitness. The general pattern across most taxa is that after birth telomere length gradually decreases with age. Telomere protection and restoration mechanisms are usually assumed to reduce the rate of shortening or at most keep telomere length constant. However, here we have compiled a list of 26 articles showing that there is an increasing number of studies reporting apparent elongation of telomeres (i.e., a net increase in TL from timet to timet+1) often in a considerable proportion of the individuals studied. Moreover, the few studies which have studied telomere elongation in detail show that increases in telomere length are unlikely to be due to measurement error alone. In this article, we argue that episodes of telomere elongation deserve more attention as they could reflect individual strategies to optimise life histories and maximise fitness, which may not be reflected in the overall telomere dynamics patterns. We propose that patterns of telomere (net) elongation may be partly determined by other factors than those causing telomere shortening, and therefore deserve analyses specifically targeted to investigate the occurrence of telomere elongation. We elaborate on two ecological hypotheses that have been proposed to explain patterns of telomere elongation (the ‘excess resources elongation’ and the ‘last resort elongation’ hypothesis) and we discuss the current evidence for (or against) these hypotheses and propose ways to test them.

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2022

Ecology and Evolution

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The influence of phylogeny and life history on telomere lengths and telomere rate of change among bird species: A meta‐analysis

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 13 publications

References 116 publications

Two aspects of longevity are associated with the rate of loss of telomeres in birds

Two aspects of longevity are associated with the rate of loss of telomeres in birds

Why and when should organisms elongate their telomeres? Elaborations on the ‘excess resources elongation’ and ‘last resort elongation’ hypotheses

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