The evolution of gestation length in eutherian mammals.

ABSTRACT: Gestation length, or the duration of pregnancy, is a critical component of mammalian reproductive biology¹. Eutherian mammals exhibit striking variation in their gestation lengths^2-5, which has traditionally been linked to and allometrically scales with variation in other life history traits, including body mass and lifespan^5-8. How the phenotypic landscape of gestation length variation, including its associations with body mass and lifespan variation, changed over mammalian evolution remains unknown. Phylogeny-informed analyses of 845 representative extant eutherian mammals showed that gestation length variation substantially differed in both whether and how strongly it was associated with body mass and lifespan across mammalian clades. For example, gestat

SUBMITTER: Danis T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10634735 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature