SOURCE-LINKED INTELLIGENCE

How senescence and the environment shape fitness in the wild

CORDIS · observation · Publication date unknown

cal pathways in the wild and availability of life-long samples paired with suitably detailed genetic, environmental and fitness data. ‘Biological ageing clocks’ combine minimally invasive sampling, machine learning and ’omics data to robustly predict age, health and mortality risk across human populations. The power of epigenetic and immune ageing clocks to help predict and understand human senescence is well established, but their application in the wild remains limited. ECOAGE will generate new large-scale methylation and immunological data from one of the most detailed studies of a wild animal available, the St Kilda Soay sheep project. Using 41 years of blood sampling and data collection, we will test how interactions among genetics, environmental conditions and epigenetic ageing shape among-individual differences in adult fitness. We will use new immunological data to build the first immune ageing clock for a wild animal and test how changes in immune function during adulthood influence survival and reproduction under natural infection pressures. ECOAGE will build a powerfu

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recordType

award

status

SIGNED

region

EU

value

2496928

unit

EUR