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Subject: house sparrow

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    Aging and Early Life Stress: Telomerase Dynamics and The Consequences for Telomeres in a Wild Bird
    (North Dakota State University, 2020) Vangorder-Braid, Jennifer Teresa
    Aging is an underlying risk factor for many major diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegeneration. Yet we still do not know the full extent of how our bodies age and what determines our lifespan. One mechanism that may play an important role are telomeres, which are protective caps at the end of chromosomes. Telomeres are directly linked to longevity and can be lengthened by the enzyme telomerase. Early life telomere length is critical for lifespan, but we do not know how telomerase performs during this period. Whether variation in telomerase levels can influence telomere length and loss during development with consequences to longevity is still unknown. This thesis focuses on the role of telomerase during post-natal development and its response to stressors and activators with effects on telomeres. Taken together this research enhances our understanding of how telomerase acts and influences telomere during post-natal development.
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    The Effects of Variation in Temperature and Parental Behavior on Offspring Body Mass, Telomeres and Survival Are Context-Dependent in Free Living House Sparrows (Passer domesticus)
    (North Dakota State University, 2022) Dennis, Abigail
    Although developing birds are vulnerable to extreme and erratic temperature conditions associated with climate change, parents have some ability to buffer these effects via incubation and postnatal behavior. However, parents are constrained by their own physiology and ecology. In this thesis, I sought to determine which factors (seasonal thermal profile, consistency of ambient temperature and/or parental behavior) drove traits linked to fitness across ontogeny in free-living house sparrow nestlings (Passer domesticus). I found that the effects of these factors were context-dependent; seasonal thermal profile and average temperature were important in shaping body size across ontogeny, but variance in nest temperature and female postnatal visits better predicted hatching and day 10 survival, respectively. Future studies should seek to answer these questions in other populations and explore hypotheses surrounding interactions between developmental environments to better our understanding of climate change and thermoregulation in response to increasingly warm and erratic global temperatures.