Age‐related telomere shortening is considered a hallmark of the ageing process. However, a recent cross‐sectional ageing study of relative telomere length (rTL) in bats failed to detect a relationship between rTL and age in the long‐lived genus Myotis (M. myotis and M. bechsteinii), suggesting some other factors are responsible for driving telomere dynamics in these species. Here, we test if longitudinal rTL data show signatures of age‐associated telomere attrition in M. myotis and differentiate which intrinsic or extrinsic factors are likely to drive telomere length dynamics. Using quantitative polymerase chain reaction, rTL was measured in 504 samples from a marked population, from Brittany, France, captured between 2013 and 2016. These represent 174 individuals with an age range of 0 to 7+ years. We find no significant relationship between rTL and age (p = .762), but demonstrate that within‐individual rTL is highly variable from year to year. To investigate the heritability of rTL, a population pedigree (n = 1744) was constructed from genotype data generated from a 16‐microsatellite multiplex, designed from an initial, low‐coverage, Illumina genome for M. myotis. Heritability was estimated in a Bayesian, mixed model framework, and showed that little of the observed variance in rTL is heritable (h² = 0.01–0.06). Rather, correlations of first differences, correlating yearly changes in telomere length and weather variables, demonstrate that, during the spring transition, average temperature, minimum temperature, rainfall and windspeed correlate with changes in longitudinal telomere dynamics. As such, rTL may represent a useful biomarker to quantify the physiological impact of various environmental stressors in bats.

中文翻译：

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长寿命蝙蝠物种Myotis myotis中纵向端粒动力学的驱动因素。

与年龄有关的端粒缩短被认为是衰老过程的标志。然而，最近一项关于蝙蝠相对端粒长度（rTL）的横断面老化研究未能检测到长寿命的Myotis属（M. myotis和M. bechsteinii）中rTL与年龄之间的关系，这表明其他一些因素是造成这种情况的原因。在这些物种中促进端粒动力学。在这里，我们测试是否纵向RTL数据显示，与年龄有关的端粒耗损的签名在M.鼠耳蝠并区分哪些内在或外在因素可能会推动端粒长度动态变化。使用定量聚合酶链反应，2013年至2016年间在来自法国布列塔尼的标记人群中的504个样本中测量了rTL。这些样本代表174个年龄在0至7岁以上的个体。我们发现rTL与年龄之间无显着关系（p  = .762），但表明个体内部rTL逐年变化很大。为了研究rTL的遗传力， 从16微卫星多重基因组产生的基因型数据构建了种群谱系（n = 1744），该基因组数据是从最初的低覆盖率Myillus myotis基因组设计的。在贝叶斯混合模型框架中估计了遗传力，结果表明在rTL中观察到的变异很少是遗传性的（h ²  = 0.01–0.06）。相反，最初差异的相关性与端粒长度和天气变量的年度变化相关，表明在春季过渡期间，平均温度，最低温度，降雨量和风速与端粒纵向动态变化相关。这样，rTL可以代表有用的生物标记，以量化蝙蝠中各种环境应激源的生理影响。