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Environmental factors affecting the length of gestation in mammals

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Environmental Factors in Mammal Reproduction

Part of the book series: Biology and Environment ((SBES))

Abstract

A fixed gestation period is such a marked feature of mammalian reproductive cycles that it must have been the subject of strong selection pressure during evolution. The trophoblast has a species-specific life-span (Kirby, 1963; Holm, 1967), serving as a crude clock in the timing of events which terminate pregnancy, and the metabolism of the conceptus acts as a fine adjustment. The most important fetal contribution to the initiation of parturition, at least in domestic bovids, is the secretion of glucocorticoids from the fetal adrenal gland (Liggins, 1979; Nathanielsz, 1978). Thus, among sheep and cattle, prolonged pregnancy may be associated with derangement of the fetal pituitary — adrenal axis; this may be genotypic in origin, or may result from ingestion of toxic shrubs by the mother (Holm, 1967). In other species, the metabolism of extrafetal tissue such as the chorion may be more important in the initiation of parturition (Liggins, 1979).

Dr Paul Racey is a graduate of the Universities of Cambridge and London. He has worked at The Wellcome Laboratories for Comparative Physiology, London Zoo, and at The Unit of Reproductive Biology, Liverpool University, and was appointed in 1973 to a lectureship in the University of Aberdeen, where he is now a senior lecturer. His research interests include the reproductive biology and endocrinology of seasonally breeding mammals and birds, and unusual adaptations of mammalian reproduction. In Aberdeen he has worked on bats, tenrecs, hyaenas and rooks.

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  1. Dr P. A. Racey
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physiology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland

    Desmond Gilmore

  2. University Department of Steroid Biochemistry, Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, Scotland

    Brian Cook

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© 1981 Dr P. A. Racey

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Racey, P.A. (1981). Environmental factors affecting the length of gestation in mammals. In: Gilmore, D., Cook, B. (eds) Environmental Factors in Mammal Reproduction. Biology and Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03964-7_14

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