Life history consequences of growth variation

It is now widely appreciated that, while animals may appear to recover from periods of poor food quality or quantity experienced in early development, adverse effects may occur later in adult life. Such effects can influence the performance of complete cohorts of animals, and have important consequences for population dynamics. The reasons why such delayed effects occur across the animals' lifetimes are poorly understood. Following a period of shortage, animals often grow rapidly and may appear to catch-up. The period of early poor early nutritional itself, or problems associated with subsequent accelerated growth, could potentially be responsible. These have not been separated. However, it is important that we understand whether compensatory growth does carry long-term costs, since this has widespread ramifications for our understanding of the evolution of growth rate (optimised or maximised?) and life history strategies. We will study the long-term consequences of variation in early growth trajectories, using the zebra finch as a study species. We will examine effects at the levels of DNA, cells, overall metabolism and senescence of the whole organism.