Assortative pairing by telomere length in king penguins and relationships with breeding success

• Main Authors: Schull, Quentin, Viblanc, Vincent A., Dobson, F. Stephen, Robin, Jean-Patrice, Zahn, Sandrine, Cristofari, Robin, Bize, Pierre, Criscuolo, François
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: NRC Research Press (a division of Canadian Science Publishing) 2017
• Subjects: King Penguins
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/88000; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjz-2017-0094

Telomeres are non-coding genetic repeats protecting the ends of linear chromosomes. Long telomeres are often associated with high individual survival, and inter-individual variation in telomere length has recently been proposed as a proxy for individual quality. Therefore, one might expect individuals of either sex with long telomeres to be of higher intrinsic quality and to be preferred in the context of mate choice. Thus, in sexually monomorphic species where individuals discriminate mates on the basis of signals of intrinsic quality, mate choice should lead to assortative pairing by telomere length, and it should be associated with breeding performance. We tested these two predictions in the king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus, Miller, 1778), a sexually monomorphic seabird. Over 3 years of study and 73 penguin pairs under contrasting environmental conditions, we found strong assortative pairing by telomere length. Interestingly, only female telomere length was positively associated to chick survival up to fledging, and this relationship was only apparent when foraging conditions at sea were average. The positive link between telomere length and breeding success confirmed that telomere length is somehow related to individual biological state at a given time. The proximate mechanisms by which birds assess individual state related to telomere length remains to be discovered. The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author.