Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine

TY - JOUR

T1 - Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine

AU - Kuijper, Bram

AU - Hanson, Mark A.

AU - Vitikainen, Emma I. K.

AU - Marshall, Harry

AU - Ozanne, Susan E.

AU - Cant, Michael A.

PY - 2019/2/25

Y1 - 2019/2/25

N2 - Variation in early-life conditions can trigger developmental switches that lead to predictable individual differences in adult behaviour and physiology. Despite evidence for such early-life effects being widespread both in humans and throughout the animal kingdom, the evolutionary causes and consequences of this developmental plasticity remain unclear. The current issue aims to bring together studies of early-life effects from the fields of both evolutionary ecology and biomedicine to synthesise and advance current knowledge of how information is used during development, the mechanisms involved, and how early-life effects evolved. We hope this will stimulate further research into early-life effects, improving our understanding of why individuals differ and how this might influence their susceptibility to disease. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine’. © 2019, The Author(s), Published by the Royal Society. This is an author produced version of a paper published in PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link below. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.

AB - Variation in early-life conditions can trigger developmental switches that lead to predictable individual differences in adult behaviour and physiology. Despite evidence for such early-life effects being widespread both in humans and throughout the animal kingdom, the evolutionary causes and consequences of this developmental plasticity remain unclear. The current issue aims to bring together studies of early-life effects from the fields of both evolutionary ecology and biomedicine to synthesise and advance current knowledge of how information is used during development, the mechanisms involved, and how early-life effects evolved. We hope this will stimulate further research into early-life effects, improving our understanding of why individuals differ and how this might influence their susceptibility to disease. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine’. © 2019, The Author(s), Published by the Royal Society. This is an author produced version of a paper published in PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link below. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.

KW - developmental plasticity

KW - epigenetics

KW - growth

KW - nutrition

KW - parental effect

KW - predictive adaptive response

U2 - 10.1098/rstb.2019.0039

DO - 10.1098/rstb.2019.0039

M3 - Article

SN - 0962-8436

VL - 374

JO - PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

JF - PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

IS - 1770

M1 - 20190039

ER -