Sex-dependent spatial structure of telomere length in a wild long-lived scavenger

• Autores: Gangoso, Laura; Lambertucci, Sergio Agustin; Cabezas, Sonia; Alarcón, Pablo Angel Eduardo; Wiemeyer, Guillermo; Sanchez-Zapata, José A.; Blanco, Guillermo; Hiraldo, Fernando; Donázar, José A.
• Año de publicación: 2016
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: FEATHER CORTICOSTERONE; LONG-LIVED BIRDS; MOVEMENT PATTERNS; SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT; TELOMERE LENGTH
• Institución: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

Sex-related divergences in many phenotypic traits, such as morphology, physiology, and behavior, have widely been described in animals. These asymmetries may adapt the sexes to different subniches, but also may produce sex-specific optima for life-history traits, as well as different costs. In birds, long movements in search of food and intraspecific competition may entail important metabolic costs that can be predicted to be unequal if both sexes perform somehow differently. However, the extent to which sex-specific individual movements, foraging strategies and social dominance relationships are correlated with physiological costs has rarely been evaluated. The effects of prolonged exposure to stressors can be mirrored in accelerated cellular damage and aging as well as in the by-products resulting from the activation of the stress response machinery. Both indicators, measured as telomere length and the concentration of feather corticosterone (CORTf), respectively, would reflect physiological costs at different time frames. Here, on the basis of information provided by GPS-Tagged Andean condors, a sexually dimorphic scavenger with a highly despotic social system, we determined whether sex-specific movement patterns correlated to variation in telomere length and CORTf levels. We found a striking pattern of spatial structure of telomere length that was, in addition, sex-specific; males breeding farther from feeding grounds exhibited longer telomeres, while the opposite pattern was found in females. Nevertheless, telomere length was not related to the range of movements performed by condors. We also found that females displayed higher CORTf values than males, regardless of the location of their nests, which is likely related to social dominance hierarchy and sexual size dimorphism. Sex-specific optima for trade-offs associated with ecological factors might underlie the fact that populations are spatially structured from a telomere-length perspective, which has never been described before.
Fil: Gangoso, Laura. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España
Fil: Lambertucci, Sergio Agustin. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina
Fil: Cabezas, Sonia. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España
Fil: Alarcón, Pablo Angel Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina
Fil: Wiemeyer, Guillermo. Jardín Zoológico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires; Argentina
Fil: Sanchez-Zapata, José A.. Universidad de Miguel Hernández; España
Fil: Blanco, Guillermo. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España
Fil: Hiraldo, Fernando. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España
Fil: Donázar, José A.. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España