Telomere heritability and parental age at conception effects in a wild avian population

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.15804. This is version 2 of this Preprint.

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Authors

Alexandra M Sparks, Lewis G. Spurgin, Marco van der Velde, Eleanor A. Fairfield, Jan Komdeur, Terry Burke, David S Richardson, Hannah L Dugdale 

Abstract

Individual variation in telomere length is predictive of health and mortality risk across a range of species. However, the relative influence of environmental and genetic variation on individual telomere length in wild populations remains poorly understood. In previous studies, heritability of telomere length has primarily been calculated using parent-offspring regression, but shared environments can confound such estimates. Furthermore, associations with age and parental age at conception effects are typically not accounted for but can also bias heritability estimates. To control for these confounding variables, quantitative genetic ‘animal models’ can be used. However, the few studies on wild populations using this approach have been restricted by power. Here, we investigated the heritability of telomere length and parental age at conception effects in the Seychelles warbler using 2664 telomere length measures from 1318 birds over 20 years and a multi-generational pedigree. We found a weak negative within-paternal age at conception effect (as fathers aged, their offspring had shorter telomeres) and a weak positive between-maternal age at conception effect (females that survived to older ages had offspring with longer telomeres). While parent–offspring regressions did not detect heritability, animal models provided evidence that heritability of telomere length was low in this population. Environmental and technical variation largely influenced telomere length and would have biased heritability estimates if unaccounted for. Estimating the heritability of telomere length is complex, requiring large sample sizes and accounting for confounding effects in order to improve our understanding of the evolutionary potential of telomere length in the wild.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32942/osf.io/eq2af

Subjects

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Keywords

animal model, heritability, Maternal age at conception, Paternal age at conception, Seychelles warbler, telomere length

Dates

Published: 2020-07-08 08:35

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License

CC-By Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Data and Code Availability Statement:
Data will be available on a data repository upon article acceptance