A marker of biological ageing predicts adult risk preference in European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris

Clare Andrews, Daniel Nettle, Sophie Reichert, Tom Bedford, Pat Monaghan and Melissa Bateson

Behavioral Ecology, 2018, vol. 29, issue 3, 589-597

Abstract: Why do some individuals gamble more than others? Existing theories, based on how close animals are to starvation, have been only weakly supported by evidence. We found that faster ageing birds were less likely to gamble while foraging. We measured biological ageing in starlings from the shortening of DNA sequences called telomeres. Birds’ whose telomeres shortened more had stronger preferences for a foraging option yielding a consistent amount of food over a variable amount.

Keywords: ageing; developmental plasticity; early life adversity; life expectancy; risk sensitive foraging; risk taking; starling; telomere (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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