Cross-generational effects of stress exposure

In many organisms, exposure to stressors is expected to increase in the face of rapidly changing environments with important consequences for fitness. In collaboration with Dr. David Westneat, at the University of Kentucky, we are examining the long-term consequences of stress experienced by parents on their offspring.

Parental stress can be transmitted to offspring through parental behaviors, signaling factors to developing embryos, and changes in the control of DNA expression. However, a novel alternative is that parental stress might directly impact the DNA that offspring inherit through effects on parental germ-line telomeres. This research tests the importance of parental stress exposure on offspring telomeres using experiments on free-living and captive house sparrows and the analysis of longitudinal blood samples and data collected from thousands of individuals in a 25-year long-term study.