ArticlePLoS genetics2019
Epigenetic inheritance of telomere length in wild birds.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- Environmental and Genetic Determinants of Early-Life Telomere Length in Tree Swallows.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Mothers Matter Most: Maternal, but Not Paternal, Age and Inbreeding Affect Nestling Telomere Length in a Wild Passerine.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Assortative breeding experiment in a songbird suggests telomere length is determined during early life rather than at conception.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Persistent maternal age effects on male offspring fitness traits in a wild mammal population.Evolution letters · 2025Article
- Parental Preconception Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Maternal Prenatal Inflammation Prospectively Predict Shorter Telomere Length in Children.Psychosomatic medicine · 2024Article
- Involvement of Inheritance in Determining Telomere Length beyond Environmental and Lifestyle Factors.Aging and disease · 2023Review
- Developmental origins of health and disease: Impact of paternal nutrition and lifestyle.Pediatric investigation · 2023Review
- Inbreeding effects on telomeres in hatchling sand lizards (Lacerta agilis): An optimal family affair?Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Transmissible cancer and longitudinal telomere dynamics in Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii).Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Stressors interact across generations to influence offspring telomeres and survival.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 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
- Telomere length declines with age, but relates to immune function independent of age in a wild passerine.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Evidence of Paternal Effects on Telomere Length Increases in Early Life.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Article
- Longitudinal evidence that older parents produce offspring with longer telomeres in a wild social bird.Biology letters · 2021Article
- Exposure to food insecurity increases energy storage and reduces somatic maintenance in European starlings (Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Sex-specific telomere length and dynamics in relation to age and reproductive success in Cory's shearwaters.Molecular ecology · 2020Article
- The deteriorating soma and the indispensable germline: gamete senescence and offspring fitness.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Intergenerational effects on offspring telomere length: interactions among maternal age, stress exposure and offspring sex.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Telomere Dynamics Throughout Spermatogenesis.Genes · 2019Article
- Older paternal ages and grandpaternal ages at conception predict longer telomeres in human descendants.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
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5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Telomere length (TL) predicts health and survival across taxa. Variation in TL between individuals is thought to be largely of genetic origin, but telomere inheritance is unusual, because zygotes already express a TL phenotype, the TL of the parental gametes. Offspring TL changes with paternal age in many species including humans, presumably through age-related TL changes in sperm, suggesting an epigenetic inheritance mechanism. However, present evidence is based on cross-sectional analyses, and age at reproduction is confounded with between-father variation in TL. Furthermore, the quantitative importance of epigenetic TL inheritance is unknown. Using longitudinal data of free-living jackdaws Corvus monedula, we show that erythrocyte TL of subsequent offspring decreases with parental age within individual fathers, but not mothers. By cross-fostering eggs, we confirmed the paternal age effect to be independent of paternal age dependent care. Epigenetic inheritance accounted for a minimum of 34% of the variance in offspring TL that was explained by paternal TL. This is a minimum estimate, because it ignores the epigenetic component in paternal TL variation and sperm TL heterogeneity within ejaculates. Our results indicate an important epigenetic component in the heritability of TL with potential consequences for offspring fitness prospects.
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