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reine termite

How do termite queens and kings stay healthy for decades?

Reproductive and worker castes of termites differ greatly in their morphology and behavior but also in their fertility and longevity. Kings and queens of the highly social termite, Macrotermes natalensis, live for decades, with the queen laying thousands of eggs per day. Workers are sterile and only live a few weeks. In our HFSP project, we investigated the regulatory mechanisms involved in generating such diverse phenotypes. Our previous results indicate that well-regulated transcription allows reproductive castes to overcome simultaneously several well-known hallmarks of aging.

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Juvénile de Zootoca vivipara

Lizards from warm and declining populations are born with extremely short telomeres

This study unraveled the impacts of accelerated aging pace as a corollary of climate-driven population decline. We found transgenerational accumulation of telomere shortening implying that offspring were already born “old”. We suggest that this process may exacerbate across generations, leading to an aging loop in the population. This model posits that telomere dynamics should represent a molecular biomarker of extirpation, and likely a central cause and promising solution for future biodiversity managing actions.

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