Telomere length reflects individual quality in free-living adult king penguins
Résumé
Growing evidence suggests that telomeres,
non-coding DNA sequences that shorten with age and
stress, are related in an undefined way to individual
breeding performances and survival rates in several species.
Short telomeres and elevated shortening rates are
typically associated with life stress and low health. As
such, telomeres could serve as an integrative proxy of
individual quality, describing the overall biological state of
an individual at a given age. Telomere length could be
associated with the decline of an array of physiological
traits in age-controlled individuals. Here, we investigated
the links between individuals’ relative telomere length,
breeding performance and various physiological (body
condition, natural antibody levels) and life history (age,
past breeding success) parameters in a long-lived seabird
species, the king penguin Aptenodytes patagonicus. While
we observed no link between relative telomere length and
age, we found that birds with longer telomeres arrived
earlier for breeding at the colony, and had higher breeding
performances (i.e. the amount of time adults managed to
maintain their chicks alive, and ultimately breeding success)
than individuals with shorter telomeres. Further, we
observed a positive correlation between telomere length
and natural antibody levels. Taken together, our results add
to the growing evidence that telomere length is likely to
reflect individual quality difference in wild animal.