Brood size is associated with apparent telomere lengthening in nestling barn swallows

Early life for animals is often a time of rapid growth and development. In a resource-limited environment, life history theory predicts that there must be trade-offs between resource sinks in ways that optimize future survival and reproductive success. Telomeres have emerged as putative indicators o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oecologia 2023-05, Vol.202 (1), p.29-40
Main Authors: Voirin, Charlie J., Tsunekage, Toshi, Liu, Yujie, Alexy, Kate F., Levin, Iris I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Breeding
Breeding success
Cell lines
Dynamics
Early experience
Ecology
Growth
Hematopoietic stem cells
Highlighted Student Research
Hydrology/Water Resources
Juveniles
Life history
Life Sciences
Ontogeny
Plant Sciences
Reproduction
Survival
Swallows
Telomerase
Telomere
Telomere Homeostasis
Telomere Shortening
Telomeres
Tradeoffs
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Summary:Early life for animals is often a time of rapid growth and development. In a resource-limited environment, life history theory predicts that there must be trade-offs between resource sinks in ways that optimize future survival and reproductive success. Telomeres have emerged as putative indicators of these early life trade-offs, but there are conflicting accounts as to how developmental traits and conditions impact telomere length and dynamics. For 2 years, we studied the nestlings of a breeding population of barn swallows from day 6 to day 12 of life, measuring various ontogenetic factors to understand to what extent they explain variation in telomere length and dynamics. We unexpectedly found that telomeres lengthened between the two sampling points. Nestlings in large broods had shorter telomeres, but surprisingly, individuals that grew faster from day 6 to day 12 had longer telomeres and more telomere lengthening. Nestlings with higher mass relative to their nestmates on d6 had shorter telomeres, suggesting that the relatively fast growth barn swallows experience early in development is more costly than the relatively slower growth later in development. These effects were only found in the first year of study. Telomere lengthening may be due to the initiation of new hematopoietic cell lines during development or the expression of telomerase early in life. Favorable early life conditions and high parental investment could allow for more growth with little to no cost to telomere length or dynamics.
ISSN:0029-8549
1432-1939
DOI:10.1007/s00442-023-05375-0