ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Heritable variation in telomere length predicts mortality in Soay sheep.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- A meta-analysis on the heritability of vertebrate telomere length.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2022Pooled it
- Defying Expectations: Extended Lifespan and Age-Related Telomere Dynamics in the Tropical Bat Species,Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Environmental and Genetic Determinants of Early-Life Telomere Length in Tree Swallows.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Non-Invasive Measures of DNA Methylation Capture Molecular Aging in Wild Capuchin Monkeys.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Short- and long-term costs of reproduction revealed by telomere dynamics in wild greater horseshoe bats.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Genetic, phenotypic, and environmental drivers of local adaptation and climate change-induced maladaptation in a migratory songbird.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Poor developmental conditions decrease adult body size and egg size, but not egg laying rate and survival throughout adulthood: A long-term experiment in a precocial bird.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Heritability and age-dependent changes in genetic variation of telomere length in a wild house sparrow population.Evolution letters · 2025Article
- No correlative evidence of costs of infection or immunity on leucocyte telomere length in a wild population of Soay sheep.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Linking telomere dynamics to evolution, life history and environmental change: perspectives, predictions and problems.Biogerontology · 2024Review
- Telomere Dynamics in Livestock.Biology · 2023Review
- Article
- Comparison of Telomere Length in Age-Matched Primiparous and Multiparous Brahman Cows.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Early-life telomere length predicts life-history strategy and reproductive senescence in a threatened wild songbird.Molecular ecology · 2023Article
- Prenatal environment impacts telomere length in newborn dairy heifers.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Longitudinal telomere dynamics within natural lifespans of a wild bird.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- 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
- Tieing together loose ends: telomere instability in cancer and aging.Molecular oncology · 2022Review
- 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
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Telomere length (TL) is considered an important biomarker of whole-organism health and aging. Across humans and other vertebrates, short telomeres are associated with increased subsequent mortality risk, but the processes responsible for this correlation remain uncertain. A key unanswered question is whether TL-mortality associations arise due to positive effects of genes or early-life environment on both an individual's average lifetime TL and their longevity, or due to more immediate effects of environmental stressors on within-individual TL loss and increased mortality risk. Addressing this question requires longitudinal TL and life history data across the entire lifetimes of many individuals, which are difficult to obtain for long-lived species like humans. Using longitudinal data and samples collected over nearly two decades, as part of a long-term study of wild Soay sheep, we dissected an observed positive association between TL and subsequent survival using multivariate quantitative genetic models. We found no evidence that telomere attrition was associated with increased mortality risk, suggesting that TL is not an important marker of biological aging or exposure to environmental stress in our study system. Instead, we find that among-individual differences in average TL are associated with increased lifespan. Our analyses suggest that this correlation between an individual's average TL and lifespan has a genetic basis. This demonstrates that TL has the potential to evolve under natural conditions, and suggests an important role of genetics underlying the widespread observation that short telomeres predict mortality.
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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.