The evolution of gestation length in eutherian mammals

Eutherian mammals exhibit striking variation in their gestation lengths, which has traditionally been linked to and allometrically scales with variation in other life history traits, including body mass and lifespan. To understand how the phenotypic landscape of gestation length variation, including its associations with body mass and lifespan variation, changed over mammalian evolution, we conducted phylogeny-informed analyses of 845 representative extant species. We found that gestation length substantially differed in both whether and how strongly it was associated with body mass and lifespan across mammalian clades. For example, gestation length was not associated with lifespan or body mass in Chiroptera and Cetacea but was strongly associated only with body mass in Carnivora. We also identified 52 evolutionary shifts in gestation length variation across the mammal phylogeny and 14 shifts when we jointly considered variation of all three traits; six shifts were shared. Notably, two ..., We retrieved data on gestation length, lifespan, and body mass for 845 representative extant species of eutherian mammals. This information was sourced from four databases: PanTHERIA, AnAge, EltonTraits, and MOM-Mammals., , # Data from:Â The evolution of gestation length in eutherian mammals Overview This repository contains data, code, and supplemental materials associated with our study on mammalian trait evolution. all_mammals.newick: Phylogenetic tree of all mammalian species in Newick format. residuals.csv: CSV file containing residual values from statistical analyses. Data_S1.csv: Primary data file used for analysis, including species traits and ecological variables. Key Variables of Data_S1: Body Mass: The body mass of each mammalian species, measured in grams (g) Longevity: The expected lifespan of each species, measured in years. Gestation Length: The length of pregnancy for each species, measured in days Zenodo Files Software Files figure_1_code.r : R script used to generate Figure 1 in the manuscript. figure_2_code.r : R script used to generate Figure 2 in the manuscript. figure_4_code.zip : Compressed folder containing code and data to reproduce Figure 4. figure_3_code.zip : Compressed fo...