Short-term telomere dynamics is associated with glucocorticoid levels in wild populations of roe deer

Abstract

While evidence that telomere length is associated with health and mortality in humans and birds is accumulating, a large body of research is currently seeking to identify factors that modulate telomere dynamics. We tested the hypothesis that high levels of glucocorticoids in individuals under environmental stress should accelerate telomere shortening in two wild populations of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) living in different ecological contexts. From two consecutive annual sampling sessions, we found that individuals with faster rates of telomere shortening had higher concentrations of fecal glucocorticoid metabolites, suggesting a functional link between glucocorticoid levels and telomere attrition rate. This relationship was consistent for both sexes and populations. This finding paves the way for further studies of the fitness consequences of exposure to environmental stressors in wild vertebrates.

Telomere length positively correlates with pace‐of‐life in a sex‐ and cohort‐specific way and elongates with age in a wild mammal

“…Our results, combined with recent literature on telomere dynamics in small (Criscuolo et al, 2020; Foley et al, 2018; Hoelzl, Smith, et al, 2016) and large mammals (Kirby et al, 2019; Lemaître et al, 2021), as well as in fishes (Panasiak et al, 2020) and birds (Spurgin et al, 2018), pinpoint that a much greater variety of telomere dynamics patterns may exist than previously reported, including within‐individual telomere elongation, and that these patterns likely correlate with pace of life. Proximal mechanisms explaining telomere elongation in chipmunks will have to be investigated in the future, but we can hypothesize that telomerase activity is involved (Smith et al, 2021).…”

Short-term elevations in glucocorticoids do not alter telomere lengths: A systematic review and meta-analysis of non-primate vertebrate studies

“…The empirical evidence for a relationship between CORT and telomere length is mixed, with some studies showing that telomere shortening is directly related to CORT levels, and other studies finding no relationship. For example, CORT influences telomere dynamics in wild roe deer and great tits [59][60], but not in red squirrels or magellanic penguins [61][62]. These results suggest that the relationship between CORT and telomere length is species-specific.…”

“…Of the full-text articles, we removed 152 studies that did not fulfill our inclusion criteria. We statistically analyzed 15 of the remaining 31 studies, the ones that provided raw data for analysis [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. The other 16 studies appeared to fit criteria but did not provide raw data for analysis [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58].…”

Glucocorticoids of European Bison in Relation to Their Status: Age, Dominance, Social Centrality and Leadership

“…We obtained a value of FGM in ng/g per sample ( Table 1 ). This protocol was checked and validated in many species including ungulates [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 ]. We performed the measures twice, on wet and dry faeces and the values were correlated at 98.18 % (r = 0.9818, p < 0.0001).…”