Telomere length declines with mean blood lead concentration in an urban passerine

In this study, we examined the effects of Pb on telomere dynamics of free-living house sparrows, in the mining city of Broken Hill, Australia. We found that sparrows in areas with a higher mean blood lead content have shorter telomeres, but the effect was weak and not observed when using soil lead, or juvenile data only. There was no telomere shortening in recaptured birds, and the telomere rate of change was not prodicted by lead.
List of data files:
BirdData.csv: Sparrow capture records.
JRaw.csv: Raw qPCR results of telomere length measurements in juvenile samples.
JuvenileTL.csv: Juvenile telomere length dataset compiled from JRaw.csv and BirdData.csv.
MeanBloodPb.csv: Blood lead measurement for each capture site.
RetrapTL.csv: Recapture telomere length dataset compiled from RRaw.csv and BirdData.csv.
RRaw.csv: Raw qPCR results of telomere length measurements in recapture samples.
TLxLead.R: R script for data analysis.

本研究以澳大利亚矿业城市布罗肯希尔的野生家麻雀为研究对象，探讨了铅（Pb）对其端粒（telomere）动态的影响。研究发现，血液平均铅含量更高的区域内的家麻雀端粒更短，但该效应较弱；仅使用土壤铅含量数据或仅使用幼鸟数据时，未观察到此效应。重捕个体未出现端粒缩短现象，且铅含量无法预测端粒变化速率。
数据集文件列表：
BirdData.csv：家麻雀捕获记录
JRaw.csv：幼鸟样本端粒长度检测的原始qPCR（定量聚合酶链式反应）结果
JuvenileTL.csv：由JRaw.csv与BirdData.csv整合得到的幼鸟端粒长度数据集
MeanBloodPb.csv：各捕获位点的血液铅含量检测数据
RetrapTL.csv：由RRaw.csv与BirdData.csv整合得到的重捕个体端粒长度数据集
RRaw.csv：重捕样本端粒长度检测的原始qPCR结果
TLxLead.R：用于数据分析的R脚本