ArticleEcology letters2025
Hidden Causes of Variation in Offspring Reproductive Value: Negative Effects of Maternal Breeding Age on Offspring Telomere Length Persist Undiminished Across Multiple Generations.
Article in Ecology letters, 2025. 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
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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- 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
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Offspring of older breeders frequently show reduced longevity, which has been linked to shorter offspring telomere length. It is currently unknown whether such telomere reduction persists beyond a single generation, as would be the case if germline transmission is involved. In a within-grandmother, multi-generational study using zebra finches, we show that the shorter telomeres observed in F1 offspring of older mothers are still present in the F2 generation even when the breeding age of their F1 mothers is young. The effect was substantial: 43% shorter telomeres in grandoffspring from the 'grandmother old at breeding' line compared with those from the 'grandmother young at breeding' line. Shorter telomeres at fledging in this species are associated with a reduction in lifespan. Our data demonstrate the need to look beyond a single generation to explain inter-individual variation in ageing rates and thereby variation in optimal allocation of age-specific reproductive effort.
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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.