Placentation and Maternal Investment in Mammals
Open accessAbstract
The mammalian placenta exhibits striking interspecific morphological variation, yet the implications of such diversity for reproductive strategies and fetal development remain obscure. More invasive hemochorial placentas, in which fetal tissues directly contact the maternal blood supply, are believed to facilitate nutrient transfer, resulting in higher fetal growth rates, and to be a state of relative fetal advantage in the evolution of maternal-offspring conflict. The extent of interdigitation between maternal and fetal tissues has received less attention than invasiveness but is also potentially important because it influences the surface area for exchange. We show that although increased placental invasiveness and interdigitation are both associated with shorter gestations, interdigitation is the key variable. Gestation times associated with highly interdigitated labyrinthine placentas are 44% of those associated with less interdigitated villous and trabecular placentas. There is, however, no relationship between placental traits and neonatal body and brain size. Hence, species with more interdigitated placentas produce neonates of similar body and brain size but in less than half the time. We suggest that the effects of placental interdigitation on growth rates and the way that these are traded off against gestation length may be promising avenues for understanding the evolutionary dynamics of parent-offspring conflict.
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Neonatal maturity as the key to understanding brain size evolution in homeothermic vertebrates
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The Placentation of Eulipotyphla—Reconstructing a Morphotype of the Mammalian Placenta
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Emerging Roles of Endocannabinoids as Key Lipid Mediators for a Successful Pregnancy
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X chromosome-dependent disruption of placental regulatory networks in hybrid dwarf hamsters
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The Evolution of the Primate, Hominid and Human Brain
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Pre-eclampsia and maternal–fetal conflict
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Crossover in spreading behavior due to memory in population dynamics
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Do Bigger Brains Mean Better Milk?
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Placental Evolution: Innovating How to Feed Babies
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Evolution of Large Brain and Body Size in Mammals
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TRANSPORTE PLACENTÁRIO DE GASES - REVISÃO
do Prado, C. V. G. B., dos Santos, A. C. M., Carniatto, C. H. D. O., & Miglino, M. A. (2015) · Revista de Ciência Veterinária e Saúde Pública · doi:10.4025/revcivet.v2i1.26130
Carter, A. M. (2019) · Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature · doi:10.3410/f.735243336.793560672
The evolution of a placenta accelerates the evolution of postcopulatory reproductive isolation
Morrison, K. R., Zúñiga‐Vega, J. J., Travis, J., & Reznick, D. N. (2024) · Evolution · doi:10.1093/evolut/qpae180
Umbilical cord structure shapes feto-maternal heat transfer across mammalsPreprint
Wan, T., Laundon, D., Saw, S. N., Cheng, N., Lee, H. K., Johnstone, E., Jensen, O. E., Lewis, R. M., & Chernyavsky, I. L. (2025) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2025.11.18.688874
Maternal mortality, birthweight, and immunogenetics: an evolutionary framework for obstetric risk
Ettinghausen, L., & Moffett, A. (2026) · American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology · doi:10.1016/j.ajog.2026.06.002
- Authors
- Capellini, I., Venditti, C., & Barton, R. A.
- Affiliations
- Durham University (GB)
- University of Reading (GB)
- Venue
- The American Naturalist
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 2011-01
- Volume
- 177
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 86-98
- ISSN
- 0003-0147 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-5323
- OpenAlex
- W1982854607
- Semantic Scholar
- 8a0b300603b55860874f9528fc17af2557e5edd5
- Cited by
- 81
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 6.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- The American Naturalist (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CentAUR (University of Reading) (acceptedVersion)
- 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
- Leverhulme Trust
- National Institutes of Health (RR‐00165, RR 00163)
- Directorate for Biological Sciences
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/E014593/1)
- Natural Environment Research Council
- National Center for Research Resources (RR-00 165, P51RR000165, RR-00163.)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Obstetrics and Gynecology › Pregnancy and preeclampsia studies
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- placental morphology, hemochorial placenta, gestation length, maternal investment, fetal growth rate, interspecific variation, nutrient transfer, fetal development
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Body Weight, Brain, Biological Evolution, Female, Fetus, Mammals, Models, Biological, Organ Size, Phylogeny, Placenta, Placentation, Pregnancy, Body Size
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.
Classified by jev-1.13-20260917 (gold-guideline-v0.2) on 2026-10-10.
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