Early-life environmental conditions can provide a source of individual variation in life-history strategies and senescence patterns. Conditions experienced in early life can be quantified by measuring telomere length, which can act as a biomarker of survival probability in some species. Here, we investigate whether seasonal changes, weather conditions and group size are associated with early-life and/or early-adulthood telomere length in a wild population of European badgers (Meles meles). We found substantial intra-annual changes in telomere length during the first 3 years of life, where within-individual effects showed shorter telomere lengths in the winter following the first spring and a trend for longer telomere lengths in the second spring compared to the first winter. In terms of weather conditions, cubs born in warmer, wetter springs with low rainfall variability had longer early-life (3–12 months old) telomeres. Additionally, cubs born in groups with more cubs had marginally longer early-life telomeres, providing no evidence of resource constraint from cub competition. We also found that the positive association between early-life telomere length and cub survival probability remained when social and weather variables were included. Finally, after sexual maturity, in early adulthood (i.e., 12–36 months) we found no significant association between same-sex adult group size and telomere length (i.e., no effect of intrasexual competition). Overall, we show that controlling for seasonal effects, which are linked to food availability, is important in telomere length analyses, and that variation in telomere length in badgers reflects early-life conditions and also predicts first year cub survival.

中文翻译：

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早年季节、天气和社会对野生哺乳动物端粒长度的影响

生命早期的环境条件可以提供生活史策略和衰老模式的个体差异来源。生命早期经历的情况可以通过测量端粒长度来量化，端粒长度可以作为某些物种生存概率的生物标志物。在这里，我们调查了季节变化、天气条件和群体规模是否与欧洲獾野生种群的生命早期和/或成年早期端粒长度有关（狗獾). 我们发现在生命的前 3 年端粒长度发生了显着的年内变化，其中个体内效应显示在第一个春天之后的冬天端粒长度较短，并且与第一个冬天相比，第二个春天的端粒长度有更长的趋势. 就天气条件而言，出生在温暖、潮湿且降雨量变化小的春季的幼崽具有更长的生命早期（3-12 个月大）端粒。此外，在幼崽较多的群体中出生的幼崽的生命早期端粒略长，没有提供幼崽竞争导致资源限制的证据。我们还发现，当包括社会和天气变量时，早期生命端粒长度与幼崽存活概率之间的正相关仍然存在。最后，在性成熟之后，在成年早期（即 12-36 个月），我们发现同性成人群体规模与端粒长度之间没有显着关联（即，同性竞争没有影响）。总的来说，我们表明控制与食物供应相关的季节性影响在端粒长度分析中很重要，而獾端粒长度的变化反映了早期生活条件，也预测了第一年幼崽的存活率。