ArticleScientific reports2019
The cascading effects of human food on hibernation and cellular aging in free-ranging black bears.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- A trade-off in vital rates for a large carnivore inhabiting an anthropogenic landscape and a protected island ecosystem.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- The Intentional and Unintentional Human Food Subsidy Landscape for a Large Carnivore.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Life at new extremes: Integrating stress physiology and the bio-exposome in the Anthropocene.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Unpredictable warm spells in winter increase blood cortisol level but lengthen telomeres in a seasonal rodentProceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- A review of great ape behavioural responses and their outcomes to anthropogenic landscapes.Primates; journal of primatology · 2025Review
- Beware of Bear? Long-Term Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Human-Bear Conflict in Connecticut.Environmental management · 2025Article
- Hibernation telomere dynamics in a shifting climate: insights from wild greater horseshoe bats.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Evaluation of physiological stress in free-ranging bears: current knowledge and future directions.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2023Review
- Maternal survival costs in an asocial mammal.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Hibernation slows epigenetic ageing in yellow-bellied marmots.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- Darwin's small and medium ground finches might have taste preferences, but not for human foods.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Patterns of Feeding by Householders Affect Activity of Hedgehogs (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2020Article
- Contrasting seasonal patterns of telomere dynamics in response to environmental conditions in the ectothermic sand lizard, Lacerta agilis.Scientific reports · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Human foods have become a pervasive subsidy in many landscapes, and can dramatically alter wildlife behavior, physiology, and demography. While such subsidies can enhance wildlife condition, they can also result in unintended negative consequences on individuals and populations. Seasonal hibernators possess a remarkable suite of adaptations that increase survival and longevity in the face of resource and energetic limitations. Recent work has suggested hibernation may also slow the process of senescence, or cellular aging. We investigated how use of human foods influences hibernation, and subsequently cellular aging, in a large-bodied hibernator, black bears (Ursus americanus). We quantified relative telomere length, a molecular marker for cellular age, and compared lengths in adult female bears longitudinally sampled over multiple seasons. We found that bears that foraged more on human foods hibernated for shorter periods of time. Furthermore, bears that hibernated for shorter periods of time experienced accelerated telomere attrition. Together these results suggest that although hibernation may ameliorate cellular aging, foraging on human food subsidies could counteract this process by shortening hibernation. Our findings highlight how human food subsidies can indirectly influence changes in aging at the molecular level.
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