Many biological systems have brief periods of heightened environmental sensitivity which overlap with the age of dependence on resources or hormones transferred across the placenta or via breast milk. These windows of developmental plasticity, and their sensitivity to maternal cues, open up channels for transferring non-genetic information between generations (maternal effects). At Cebu, with collaborators and students I have clarified the early life predictors of a range of metabolic, reproductive, and immune functions. We focus not only on clarifying the long-term impacts of early environments on biology and health, but also look back in time to ask what in the mother’s experience (nutrition, stress, health) shapes the nature of resources or cues that she conveys across generations, and that help establish offspring developmental trajectories.
Figure: Kuzawa and Quinn (2009) Annual Review of Anthropology