Meeting Abstract

P1-149   -   The influence of paternal age on sperm and offspring telomeres. Anacleto, A*; Young, RC; Heidinger, BJ; North Dakota State University; North Dakota State University; North Dakota State University angelo.anacleto@ndsu.edu

Currently, there is great interest in understanding how parental age impacts offspring longevity, as it is expected to have long-term consequences for health, age-structured population dynamics, and the evolution of senescence. However, the mechanisms that mediate these effects of parental age on offspring are not well understood. One mechanism that may be important is telomeres, highly conserved, non-coding repetitive sequences of DNA that form protective caps at chromosome ends but limit cellular lifespan. Parental age could affect offspring telomeres at multiple stages, including direct effects on parental gamete telomeres that are then inherited by offspring. Here we examined the influence of paternal age on sperm telomere length and the potential consequences for offspring telomeres in free-living house sparrows (Passer domesticus). Previously, we have found that telomeres shorten with age in both sexes and that females with longer telomeres during early life live longer. There is also recent evidence in house sparrows that offspring produced by older parents have lower lifetime reproductive success, suggesting long-term negative effects of parental age on offspring in this species. We collected longitudinal sperm samples from males across the season within the same year and across years. We predicted that if negative long-term effects of paternal age on offspring fitness are mediated in part by age-related changes in sperm telomere length, sperm telomere length would decline with paternal age and be positively related to offspring telomeres.