Epigenetic clocks of biological age and the intergenerational consequences of ageing in the Seychelles warbler

这个令人兴奋的新项目将调查父母的生物学年龄对塞舌尔林莺后代健康和体能的影响。大多数动物在衰老过程中存在个体差异(生理功能和表现的恶化)。重要的是，这种老龄化还可能影响不同年龄父母所生子女的健康和质量。然而，父母受孕时的生物学年龄(一个人的功能反映的年龄，而不是他们的实际年龄)应该被用来调查这种代际影响-这一点在研究中被大量忽视！我们对塞舌尔孤岛林莺群体的长期监测，在那里，所有个体及其后代在他们的一生中都被测量和采样，这为研究父母老龄化的影响提供了一个独特的机会，没有非自然条件或医疗干预的混乱问题。样本和百岁S的健康、生殖和生存数据已经保存，但田野工作将扩展这些数据。先前的工作证实，在这一群体中存在个体衰老的差异，父母的年龄按时间顺序影响后代的健康。重要的是，一项初步研究表明，可以通过测量DNA甲基化来产生反映林莺生物年龄的表观时钟。因此，这一群体为一项出色的开创性研究提供了资源。

This exciting novel project will investigate the effects of parental biological age on offspring health and fitness in the Seychelles warbler.Individual variation in ageing (the deterioration of physiological function and performance in later life) occurs within most animals. Importantly, this ageing may also impact the health and quality of offspring produced by parents of different ages. However, parental biological age at conception (the age an individual's functionality reflects, not their chronological age), should be used to investigate such intergenerational effects - a point that has been massively overlooked in studies!Our long-term monitoring of an isolated island population of Seychelles warblers, where all individuals, and their offspring, are measured and sampled throughout their lives, provides a unique opportunity to study the impact of parental ageing without the confounding issues of unnatural conditions or medical interventions. Samples and health, reproduction and survival data on 100's of individuals are already held, but fieldwork will extend this data. Previous work confirms that individual variation in ageing occurs in this population and that parental chronological age impacts offspring fitness. Importantly, a pilot study shows that epigentic clocks that reflect biological age in the warbler can be generated from measures of DNA methylation. This population therefore provides the resources for an excellent, ground-breaking study.