RESULTS
The correlation betweentarsus length and telomere length
The model that included tarsus length was the highest ranked model for explaining variation in TL (w 1=0.78,ER 1=w1/w2 =3.55, model without tarsus length: 2AICc =2.5). Thus, there was a negative association between tarsus length and TL (βtarsus length =-0.004±0.002, CI=[-0.007, -0.000], n =2462, Fig. 1 and Table 1), such that larger nestlings generally had slightly shorter early-life telomeres.