Telomere dynamics in a lizard with morph-specific reproductive investment and self-maintenance.

ABSTRACT: Telomeres in human fibroblasts shorten progressively during in vitro culturing and trigger replicative senescence. Furthermore, shortened telomeres can be used as biomarkers of disease. These observations have led to the suggestion that telomere dynamics may also be associated with viability and selection for life history variation in non-human taxa. Model systems to examine this suggestion would particularly benefit from the coexistence of multiple phenotypes within the same species with different life history trade-offs, since those could be compared in terms of telomere characteristics. This scenario also provokes the classic question of why one morph does not have marginally higher fitness and replaces the others. One explanation is that different morphs have different reproduct

SUBMITTER: Rollings N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5528203 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature