This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twelve-month research fellowship by Dr. Britt Heidinger to work with Dr. Pat Monaghan at the University of Glasgow in the UK.
There is an increasing appreciation that understanding the mechanisms that underlie life-history traits is essential for predicting the evolution of life-history trade-offs. Life-history theory predicts that life-history traits such as the rate of growth are optimized rather than maximized. In support of this idea, rapid growth is associated with accelerated aging and a reduced lifespan in diverse taxa. However, we currently have little information about the physiological mechanisms that underlie this link. One process that is likely to be particularly important in this regard is cell telomere loss. Telomeres shorten during cell division and limit the replicative potential of cells and might thereby influence organismal lifespan. Exposure to oxidative stress in vitro accelerates telomere loss. Therefore, metabolically costly processes such as growth acceleration might hasten telomere loss in vivo and form a mechanistic link between the rate of growth and longevity. This study will take advantage of a unique opportunity to test this hypothesis in a known-age, free-living population of a long-lived seabird, the European shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis). Specifically, we will examine whether 1) telomere length and loss rates are predictive of longevity, and whether 2) growth acceleration during development increases levels of oxidative stress and hastens telomere loss. The results of this study will enhance our understanding of the long-term consequences of the conditions experienced during early life and the mechanisms that underlie life-history trade-offs.
