, environmental factors, and aging can cause methylation to occur. The causes are likely similar in lobsters, where the accumulation of methyl groups on strands of DNA build a so-called"epigenetic clock" -- a record of how long they've been alive.
When the research team, led by postgraduate researcher Eleanor Fairfield, took DNA samples from the legs and antennae of 155 lobsters of known ages between 0 and 51 months, they found that older lobsters had more methyl groups attached to their DNA than younger ones.The technique could bring a new level of accuracy to a wildlife management concern that's only ever been a matter of expert guesswork.
"It might be that in very cold areas methylation accumulates more slowly, or more rapidly," Taylor said. His lab is now looking at how methylation varies in lobsters of the same age in different environments and is also studying lobsters up to six years old to see if the sliding scale of methylation continues.Ultimately, this finding could help humans protect lobsters by keeping their populations as naturally balanced as possible.
"If you heavily exploit the population, you might take out all the big individuals, or all the little individuals," Taylor said, making it harder for that population to adapt to changes in the environment."It's been shown that in general, a natural age structure in a population is far more resilient."
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