A black-browed albatross sitting on its nest at a long-term monitoring colony (Kerguelen Archipelago, Southern Ocean)HENRI WEIMERSKIRCH Last week, researchers reported that the age of a relatively short-lived bird affects his offspring’s telomere length. Specifically, older zebra finch males sired embryos with shorter telomeres compared to younger dads. The experiment also showed that older father birds had offspring with shorter lifespans.
In a study published today (March 21) in PLOS ONE, a different group of researchers from the French National Center for Scientific Research in Villiers en Bois, France, report seemingly contradictory findings: young birds, they find, produce chicks with shorter telomeres and poorer body conditions compared to middle-aged birds. Rather than using an experimental approach, Frederic Angelier and his colleagues took samples from black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophrys) in the wild.
A striking difference between the two studies is the lifespans of the bird species, which fall on the extreme ends of the longevity spectrum of birds, writes Angelier in an email to The Scientist. Zebra finches (Species name) live between five and eight years years, while the albatrosses live upwards of 40 years. Longevity can ...
