Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

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

Muhammad, Asghar LU ; Hasselquist, Dennis LU ; Hansson, Bengt LU orcid ; Zehtindjiev, P ; Westerdahl, Helena LU and Bensch, Staffan LU orcid (2015) In Science 347(6220). p.436-438
Abstract
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... (More)
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. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Science
volume
347
issue
6220
pages
436 - 438
publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
external identifiers
  • pmid:25613889
  • wos:000348225800047
  • scopus:84921760769
  • pmid:25613889
ISSN
1095-9203
DOI
10.1126/science.1261121
project
Malaria in birds
Long-term study of great reed warblers
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
162d031e-d893-48d9-87f0-82591af32fd3 (old id 5039956)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:32:03
date last changed
2025-04-04 14:21:21
@article{162d031e-d893-48d9-87f0-82591af32fd3,
  abstract     = {{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.}},
  author       = {{Muhammad, Asghar and Hasselquist, Dennis and Hansson, Bengt and Zehtindjiev, P and Westerdahl, Helena and Bensch, Staffan}},
  issn         = {{1095-9203}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{6220}},
  pages        = {{436--438}},
  publisher    = {{American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)}},
  series       = {{Science}},
  title        = {{Chronic infection. Hidden costs of infection: chronic malaria accelerates telomere degradation and senescence in wild birds.}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1261121}},
  doi          = {{10.1126/science.1261121}},
  volume       = {{347}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}