Writing project:
Some have suggested that the age of weaning of infants from the breast is subject to  parent offspring conflict. Eg. infants might want to breastfeed longer than the mother would like. Breastfeeding tends to suppress ovulation and delay pregnancy.   Give an evolutionary hypothesis for why infants might exhibit behavior that promotes longer breastfeeding.  What behaviors might these be? The infant has 1/2 maternal derived genes and 1/2 paternal derived genes; which of these would these be expected to prolong breastfeeding?

Update: I reloaded the slides from todays lecture. Click again below…

Click Below for the lecture handout from today:

conflicts-in-pregnancy

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Joe Alcock

Emergency Physician, Educator, Researcher, interested in the microbiome, evolution, and medicine