Estimation of environmental, genetic and parental age at conception effects on telomere length in a wild mammal

Understanding individual variation in fitness-related traits requires separating the environmental and genetic determinants. Telomeres are protective caps at the ends of chromosomes that are thought to be a biomarker of senescence as their length predicts mortality risk and reflect the physiological consequences of environmental conditions. The relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to individual variation in telomere length is, however, unclear, yet important for understanding its evolutionary dynamics. In particular, the evidence for transgenerational effects, in terms of parental age at conception, on telomere length is mixed. Here, we investigate the heritability of telomere length, using the ‘animal model’, and parental age at conception effects on offspring telomere length in a wild population of European badgers (Meles meles). Although we found no heritability of telomere length and low evolvability (