Chronic infection. Hidden costs of infection: chronic malaria accelerates telomere degradation and senescence in wild birds

Recovery from infection is not always complete, and mild chronic infection may persist. Although the direct costs of such infections are apparently small, the potential for any long-term effects on Darwinian fitness is poorly understood. In a wild population of great reed warblers, we found that low...

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Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 347; no. 6220; pp. 436 - 438
Main Authors Asghar, M, Hasselquist, D, Hansson, B, Zehtindjiev, P, Westerdahl, H, Bensch, S
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 23.01.2015
Subjects
Aging - genetics
Animals
Biologi
Biological Sciences
Breeding
Genetic Fitness
Malaria - genetics
Malaria - physiopathology
Malaria - veterinary
Malaria, Avian - genetics
Malaria, Avian - physiopathology
Medicin och hälsovetenskap
Natural Sciences
Naturvetenskap
Plasmodium
Songbirds - genetics
Songbirds - parasitology
Songbirds - physiology
Telomere Homeostasis - genetics
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Summary:Recovery from infection is not always complete, and mild chronic infection may persist. Although the direct costs of such infections are apparently small, the potential for any long-term effects on Darwinian fitness is poorly understood. In a wild population of great reed warblers, we found that low-level chronic malaria infection reduced life span as well as the lifetime number and quality of offspring. These delayed fitness effects of malaria appear to be mediated by telomere degradation, a result supported by controlled infection experiments on birds in captivity. The results of this study imply that chronic infection may be causing a series of small adverse effects that accumulate and eventually impair phenotypic quality and Darwinian fitness.
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ISSN:1095-9203
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1261121