Data from: Telomere length reflects reproductive effort indicated by corticosterone levels in a long-lived seabird ...

• Main Authors: Bauch, Christina, Riechert, Juliane, Verhulst, Simon, Becker, Peter H.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2016
• Subjects: phenotypic quality; life-history; Glucocorticoids; Sterna hirundo
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.62cp0; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.62cp0

Telomere length (TL) is a candidate biomarker of ageing and phenotypic quality, but little is known of the (physiological) causes of TL variation. We previously showed that individual common terns Sterna hirundo with high reproductive success had short telomeres independent of age, and this pattern was particularly strong in the longer telomeres of the within-individual TL distribution. To test whether this relation can be attributed to effects of reproductive effort, we investigated baseline corticosterone in relation to reproductive success (number of fledglings) and TL. In this context, we assume that variation in baseline corticosterone can be interpreted as index of energy expenditure and allostatic load. Males with higher corticosterone levels during incubation, compared between and within individuals, achieved higher reproductive success and had shorter telomeres. The effect on telomeres was more pronounced in corticosterone measured later in incubation and in the longer telomeres of the ... : Data for Bauch et al. MEC-16-0736Contains raw data used in Bauch et al. MEC-16-0736. For variable explanations see ReadMe file.Data_Bauch-etal_MEC-16-0736.csv ...