Estimating Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) Age Based on an Epigenetic DNA Methylation Clock

TL;DR

Scientists created a DNA-based method to accurately estimate the age of polar bears, which could improve wildlife management and research.

Contribution

The first epigenetic DNA methylation clock specifically developed for polar bears (Ursus maritimus).

Findings

The polar bear epigenetic clock achieved high accuracy with a correlation of 0.97.

The median absolute error of the clock was approximately 9 months.

The clock was validated using blood samples from live-captured polar bears with known ages.

Abstract

Knowledge of animal age is essential to wildlife managers for obtaining meaningful and accurate insights into demographic parameters. A common approach to aging wildlife, including bears (Ursus spp.), has been extracting a tooth during physical capture and counting the cementum annuli. Limitations to tooth‐based aging include questionable accuracy and differing results based on the observer and laboratory. DNA methylation‐based epigenetic aging clocks have been developed for many species but not yet for polar bears (
Ursus maritimus
). We generated DNA methylation data from whole blood samples (n = 109) obtained during live capture operations from polar bears of known age in the Chukchi Sea and southern Beaufort Sea subpopulations. We used these samples to calibrate a species‐specific epigenetic clock to estimate polar bear chronological age from DNA methylation (DNAm) age. The final polar bear clock was highly accurate (r = 0.97) with a median absolute error of approximately 9 months. We applied the polar bear clock to 74 blood samples from live‐captured polar bears with a cementum annuli‐estimated age. Predicted age estimates for these bears ranged from 1.43 to 18.63 years compared to the estimated tooth age range of 3.23–25.27. These epigenetic clocks can be used for polar bear research and management where accurate estimates of age are needed for estimating demographic parameters.

We developed a DNA methylation‐based epigenetic aging clock for polar bears (
Ursus maritimus
) using whole blood samples from polar bears of known age. The final polar bear clock was highly accurate (r = 0.97) with a median absolute error of approximately 9 months.

Figures