Evolution and regulation of the Early Lactation Protein gene in an Australian marsupial, the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii)

Abstract

Marsupials have developed a very different reproductive strategy to eutherians. The Australian marsupial, the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii) has a very short active pregnancy of ~26.5 days, (at the end of which they enter Phase 1 of lactation), with a comparatively long lactation of ~300-350 days. The tammar mother gives birth to analtricial ~400 mg young which spends the first 200 days postpartum (pp) in its mother's pouch, permanently (0-100 days pp, Phase 2A) and then intermittently (100-200 days pp, Phase 2B) attached to the teat. The commencement of Phase 3 marks the first exit from the pouch (in some ways akin to the birth of a precocious eutherian neonate) and the supplementation o..