Recent research suggests that oxidative stress,via its links to metabolism and senescence,is a key mechanism linking life history traits such as fecundity and growth with survival;however,this has rarely been put unde...Recent research suggests that oxidative stress,via its links to metabolism and senescence,is a key mechanism linking life history traits such as fecundity and growth with survival;however,this has rarely been put under empirical scrutiny within free-living populations.Using a wild population of live-bearing skinks,we explored how plasma antioxidant activity(OXY),reactive oxidative metabolites(ROM),and the estimated oxidative stress index are associated with female and male life history.We found that male skinks have a significantly higher ROM and estimated oxidative stress index than female skinks,but this was not accompanied by a sex difference in mortality.Both sexes showed a non-linear association between OXY and age,indicating that the oldest and youngest individuals had the lowest OXY.Interestingly,female skinks with high OXY showed a decreased probability of survival to the following season.However,we found no significant associations between female reproductive investment(litter size or litter mass)or parturition date(i.e.metabolism)and oxidative status.Combined,our results offer mixed support for a role of oxidative stress in mediating life history traits and suggest that future studies need to explore oxidative stress during vitellogenesis in addition to using an intra-individual approach to understand the cost of reproduction and patterns of aging.展开更多
基金This study was supported financially by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research(NWO)that provided a Rubicon post-doctoral fellowship for CI(project no.825.07.004),the Australian Research Council(to MO and EW),the Hermon Slade Foundation(to EW)and the NWO-Vici(to JK).
文摘Recent research suggests that oxidative stress,via its links to metabolism and senescence,is a key mechanism linking life history traits such as fecundity and growth with survival;however,this has rarely been put under empirical scrutiny within free-living populations.Using a wild population of live-bearing skinks,we explored how plasma antioxidant activity(OXY),reactive oxidative metabolites(ROM),and the estimated oxidative stress index are associated with female and male life history.We found that male skinks have a significantly higher ROM and estimated oxidative stress index than female skinks,but this was not accompanied by a sex difference in mortality.Both sexes showed a non-linear association between OXY and age,indicating that the oldest and youngest individuals had the lowest OXY.Interestingly,female skinks with high OXY showed a decreased probability of survival to the following season.However,we found no significant associations between female reproductive investment(litter size or litter mass)or parturition date(i.e.metabolism)and oxidative status.Combined,our results offer mixed support for a role of oxidative stress in mediating life history traits and suggest that future studies need to explore oxidative stress during vitellogenesis in addition to using an intra-individual approach to understand the cost of reproduction and patterns of aging.
