Maternal investment, life histories and the costs of brain growth in mammals
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Brain size variation in mammals correlates with life histories: larger-brained species have longer gestations, mature later, and have increased lifespans. These patterns have been explained in terms of developmental costs (larger brains take longer to grow) and cognitive benefits (large brains enhance survival and increase lifespan). In support of the developmental cost hypothesis, we show that evolutionary changes in pre- and postnatal brain growth correlate specifically with duration of the relevant phases of maternal investment (gestation and lactation, respectively). We also find support for the hypothesis that the rate of fetal brain growth is related to the energy turnover of the mother. In contrast, we find no support for hypotheses proposing that costs are accommodated through direct tradeoffs between brain and body growth, or between brain growth and litter size. When the duration of maternal investment is taken into account, adult brain size is uncorrelated with other life history traits such as lifespan. Hence, the general pattern of slower life histories in large-brained species appears to be a direct consequence of developmental costs.
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Recent studies point toward brain and body mass having independent genetic bases and different aspects of brain development evolving independently, suggesting selection can act on brain size and structure, or body mass, without causing correlated shifts in the other.
“Recent studies point toward brain and body mass having independent genetic bases and different aspects of brain development evolving independently (Barton and Capellini 2011;Montgomery et al. 2011;Hager et al. 2012), suggesting selection can act on brain size and structure, or body mass, without causing correlated shifts in the other.”
From THE EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF CETACEAN BRAIN AND BODY SIZE: CETACEAN BRAIN EVOLUTION (2013) · cites this paper as Barton and Capellini 2011
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- Authors
- Barton, R. A., & Capellini, I.
- Affiliations
- Durham University (GB)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2011-03-28
- Volume
- 108
- Issue
- 15
- Pages
- 6169-6174
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3076843
- OpenAlex
- W2052817691
- Cited by
- 208
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 13.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion)
- Repository@Hull (Worktribe) (University of Hull) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Research Portal (Queen's University Belfast) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Directorate for Biological Sciences
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/E014593/1)
- Natural Environment Research Council
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- brain size, maternal investment, life history, fetal brain development, gestation, lactation, lifespan, litter size, mammals
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Body Weight, Brain, Female, Humans, Lactation, Organ Size, Pregnancy
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
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