Purple Crowned Fairy Wren Telomere dynamics and lifespan

In our longitudinal study, we examined life-long telomere dynamics in wild purple crowned fairy wrens (Malurus coronatus coronatus) from early life (the time of near complete skeletal growth (age seven days)) and at various points thereafter (~ one to ten years of age). Purple crowned fairy wrens are cooperatively breeding birds that are highly philopatric with a maximum recorded lifespan of 14 years (Peters, unpublished data). We focus our work on the threatened, western sub-species that is restricted to riparian vegetation dominated by Pandanus aquaticus the tropical savannahs of far-north Western Australia. We utilised a high-quality, long-term dataset (>15 years) including lifespan and complete life-history information for several cohorts. These data enabled us to examine the relationship between telomere length, rates of telomere shortening at different life stages and individual lifespan. Our approach involved a within-subject centering analyses (using delta and average age) that allowed us to simultaneously test the association of lifespan with telomere length and telomere dynamics.