Is telomere length a molecular marker of individual quality? Insights from a long‐lived bird

In wild vertebrates, some individuals survive and reproduce better than others and this has led to the concept of individual quality. Despite its importance when studying ecological processes and life‐history trade‐offs, measuring individual quality is complex because individuals must be followed during a large part of their life. Recently, telomere biology has been successfully brought into ecology and telomere length has been suggested to be a...