Organismal stress, telomeres and life histories

Organismal stress, telomeres and life histories.

Most organisms, including ourselves, are exposed to environmental stressors at various points during life, and responses to such stressors have been optimised by evolution to give the best fitness outcomes. It is expected that environmental change will substantially increase long-term stress exposure in many animal groups in the coming decades. A major challenge for biologists is to understand ...

Oxidative stress and life histories: unresolved issues and current needs

Life-history theory concerns the trade-offs that mold the patterns of investment by animals between reproduction, growth, and survival. It is widely recognized that physiology plays a role in the mediation of life-history trade-offs, but the details remain obscure. As life-history theory concerns aspects of investment in the soma that influence survival, understanding the physiological basis of...

Stress, cell senescence and organismal ageing

Cellular senescence was first described by Hayflick and Moorhead in the 1960s as the irreversible arrest of cells following prolonged cultivation. Telomere shortening is the key mechanism driving replicative senescence in human fibroblasts. Later, pioneering work by Olivier Toussaint and others showed that stress plays a major role in the induction of senescence in vitro, a phenomenon known as ...

Telomeres, Telomerase, Stress, and Aging

Why should a behavioral scientist study telomeres? Mainte nance of telomeres, the natural ends of linear chromosomes, is a fundamental biological mechanism of all eukaryotic cells, from protozoa to humans. Gradual shortening of telomeres after each cell division eventually can lead to loss of cellular division capacity and cell death, and contribute to genomic instability, a characteristic of c...

Psychological stress, telomeres, and telomerase.