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Research Paper|Volume 9, Issue 2|pp 487—493

Telomeres shorten and then lengthen before fledging in Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus)

Jack A. Cerchiara1, Rosa Ana Risques2, Donna Prunkard2, Jeffrey R. Smith3, Olivia J. Kane1, P. Dee Boersma1,4,5
  • 1Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
  • 2Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
  • 3School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
  • 4Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY 10460, USA
  • 5Global Penguin Society, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Received: December 8, 2016Accepted: February 1, 2017Published: February 8, 2017
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101172

Copyright: © 2017 Cerchiara et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

For all species, finite metabolic resources must be allocated toward three competing systems: maintenance, reproduction, and growth. Telomeres, the nucleoprotein tips of chromosomes, which shorten with age in most species, are correlated with increased survival. Chick growth is energetically costly and is associated with telomere shortening in most species. To assess the change in telomeres in penguin chicks, we quantified change in telomere length of wild known-age Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) chicks every 15 days during the species’ growth period, from hatching to 60 days-of-age. Magellanic penguins continue to grow after fledging so we also sampled a set of 1-year-old juvenile penguins, and adults aged 5 years. Telomeres were significantly shorter on day 15 than on hatch day but returned to their initial length by 30 days old and remained at that length through 60 days of age. The length of telomeres of newly hatched chicks, chicks aged 30, 45 and 60 days, juveniles, and adults aged 5 years were similar. Chicks that fledged and those that died had similar telomere lengths. We show that while telomeres shorten during growth, Magellanic penguins elongate telomeres to their length at hatch, which may increase adult life span and reproductive opportunities.