ArticleGenome biology and evolution2024
Does Effective Population Size Govern Evolutionary Differences in Telomere Length?
Article in Genome biology and evolution, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Multispecies pangenomes reveal a pervasive influence of population size on structural variation.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Comparative population pangenomes reveal unexpected complexity and fitness effects of structural variants.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Malaria endemicity linked to shorter telomeres in leukocytes.Trends in parasitology · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Lengths of telomeres vary by an order of magnitude across mammalian species. Similarly, age- and sex-standardized telomere lengths differ by up to 1 kb (14%) across human populations. How to explain these differences? Telomeres play a central role in senescence and aging, and genes that affect telomere length are likely under weak selection (i.e. telomere length is a trait that is subject to nearly neutral evolution). Importantly, natural selection is more effective in large populations than in small populations. Here, we propose that observed differences in telomere length across species and populations are largely due to differences in effective population sizes. In this perspective, we present preliminary evolutionary genetic evidence supporting this hypothesis and highlight the need for more data.
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