Phylogenetic data
The 53 species included in our study comprised 13 orders and 29 families
(Figure 1). Maximal lifespan ranged from 6 to 60 years,female adult body mass ranged from 11 to 8060 g, andtelomere length from 1.7 to 49.3 kb. Using BirdTree, we
downloaded 100 trees downloaded from http://www.bird.tree.org
(De Magalhaes & Costa, 2009;
Jetz, Thomas, Joy, Hartmann, & Mooers,
2012), focusing on the 53 species of our dataset (producing a.nex tree file). We checked the validity of this first
phylogenetic representation by building an additional tree based on DNA
sequences of cytochrome b (ESM3). Both alternatives produced congruent
trees, but we based our subsequent analyses on the bird.tree.org based
tree, because we lacked a reliable cytochrome b sequence for Larus
andouinii, Larus crassirostris, Acrocephalus sechellensis andErythrura gouldiae . A consensus tree was produced using the Ape
package (Paradis, Claude, & Strimmer,
2004) and Phyltools (Revell, 2012).
Branch lengths were estimated using Grafen’s method
(Grafen, 1989). Markov chain Monte Carlo
generalized linear mixed model (MCMCglmm)
(Hadfield, 2010;
Hadfield & Nakagawa, 2010) packages were
used to estimate the relative amount of variation in adult telomere
length and life history traits that could be explained by shared
ancestry (viz. , the phylogenetic tree). These last packages were
also used to estimate the phylogeny content of associations between
telomere and life-history variables.