ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2018
Ectothermic telomeres: it's time they came in from the cold.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 93 citations in OpenAlex.
- Biogeographic cline is associated with the global plant telomere length variation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Ageing in Honeybees: Telomere Length Is Driven by Climate and Resource Availability Rather Than Urbanisation or Pollution.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Telomere Length Is Determined by Intrinsic Factors and Is Shortened During Drought Years inEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- Acclimation during Embryogenesis Remodulates Telomerase Activity and Gene Expression in Baikal Whitefish Larvae, Mitigating the Effects of Acute Temperature Stress.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Sex and early-life conditions shape telomere dynamics in an ectotherm.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Telomerase Activity in Somatic Tissues and Ovaries of Diploid and Triploid Rainbow Trout (Cells · 2023Article
- Telomere DNA length regulation is influenced by seasonal temperature differences in short-lived but not in long-lived reef-building corals.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Temperature-independent telomere lengthening with age in the long-lived human fish (Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Ageing across the great divide: tissue transformation, organismal growth and temperature shape telomere dynamics through the metamorphic transition.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Inbreeding effects on telomeres in hatchling sand lizards (Lacerta agilis): An optimal family affair?Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Lizards from warm and declining populations are born with extremely short telomeres.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Causes and consequences of variation in early-life telomere length in a bird metapopulation.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Individual telomere dynamics and their links to life history in a viviparous lizard.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Environment-induced changes in reproductive strategies and their transgenerational effects in the three-spined stickleback.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Fish from urban rivers and with high pollutant levels have shorter telomeres.Biology letters · 2021Article
- Seasonal variation in telomere dynamics in African striped mice.Oecologia · 2020Article
- Article
- Telomere attrition with age in a wild amphibian population.Biology letters · 2020Article
- Telomere length varies substantially between blood cell types in a reptile.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Maternal predator-exposure affects offspring size at birth but not telomere length in a live-bearing fish.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We review the evolutionary ecology and genetics of telomeres in taxa that cannot elevate their body temperature to a preferred level through metabolism but do so by basking or seeking out a warm environment. This group of organisms contains all living things on earth, apart from birds and mammals. One reason for our interest in this synthetic group is the argument that high, stable body temperature increases the risk of malignant tumours if long, telomerase-restored telomeres make cells 'live forever'. If this holds true, ectotherms should have significantly lower cancer frequencies. We discuss to what degree there is support for this 'anti-cancer' hypothesis in the current literature. Importantly, we suggest that ectothermic taxa, with variation in somatic telomerase expression across tissue and taxa, may hold the key to understanding ongoing selection and evolution of telomerase dynamics in the wild. We further review endotherm-specific effects of growth on telomeres, effects of autotomy ('tail dropping') on telomere attrition, and costs of maintaining sexual displays measured in telomere attrition. Finally, we cover plant ectotherm telomeres and life histories in a separate 'mini review'.This article is part of the theme issue 'Understanding diversity in telomere dynamics'.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.