ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Developmental plasticity as adaptation: adjusting to the external environment under the imprint of maternal capital.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Bridging maternal effects and epitranscriptomics: A novel perspective in developmental biology.Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists · 2026Review
- Predictive markers of obesity and glucose metabolism dysfunction in adult common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus).International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Article
- Early prenatal but not postnatal glucocorticoid exposure is associated with enhanced HPA axis activity into adulthood in a wild primate.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Embedded racism: Inequitable niche construction as a neglected evolutionary process affecting health.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Review
- Formal models for the study of the relationship between fluctuating asymmetry and fitness in humans.American journal of biological anthropology · 2022Article
- Maternal undernutrition alters the skeletal muscle development and methylation of myogenic factors in goat offspring.Animal bioscience · 2022Article
- Season of birth has no effect on symptoms of depression and anxiety in older adults.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Brown adipose tissue thermogenesis among a small sample of reindeer herders from sub-Arctic Finland.Journal of physiological anthropology · 2022Article
- Associations of age at marriage and first pregnancy with maternal nutritional status in Nepal.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2022Article
- Ancestral and developmental cold alter brown adipose tissue function and adult thermal acclimation in Peromyscus.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2021Article
- Reproduction and longevity: A Mendelian randomization study of gonadotropin-releasing hormone and ischemic heart disease.SSM - population health · 2019Article
- Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Plasticity is assumed to enable beneficial adjustment to the environment. In this context, developmental plasticity is generally approached within a two-stage framework, whereby adjustments to ecological cues in stage 1 are exposed to selection in stage 2. This conceptual approach may have limitations, because in species providing parental investment, particularly placental mammals such as humans, initial adjustments are not to the environment directly, but rather to the niche generated by parental phenotype (in mammals, primarily that of the mother). Only as maternal investment is withdrawn is the developing organism exposed directly to prevailing ecological conditions. A three-stage model may therefore be preferable, where developmental trajectory first adjusts to maternal investment, then to the external environment. Each offspring experiences a trade-off, benefitting from maternal investment during the most vulnerable stages of development, at the cost of exposure to investment strategies that maximize maternal fitness. Maternal life-history trade-offs impact the magnitude and schedule of her investment in her offspring, generating lifelong effects on traits related to health outcomes. Understanding the imprint of maternal capital on offspring is particularly important in species demonstrating social hierarchy. Interventions targeting maternal capital might offer new opportunities to improve health outcomes of both mother and offspring. This article is part of the theme issue 'Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.