Figure 1.
Milk components by offspring sex.
(a) protein (b) carbohydrate and (c) lipid content in milk during phase 2B and phase 3 of lactation in wallabies birthing sons (shaded) or daughters (unshaded). Females allocate significantly more protein to sons during Phase 2B of lactation than to daughters, while females allocate both carbohydrates and lipids equally to sons and daughters during phase 2B and 3 of lactation. Levels not connected by the same letter are significantly different (post-hoc Student’s t-test).
Figure 2.
Gross milk energy content during phase 2B and phase 3 of lactation.
Mean changes (± s.e.) in the energy content of milk from Tammar wallaby mothers raising sons (shaded bars) and those raising daughters (open bars) during phase 2B and phase 3 of lactation. Despite the allocation of different milk components the total energy content of the milk is not significantly different between the milk allocated to sons and daughters.
Figure 3.
Smaller females only produce daughters.
Maternal body size (pes length) and offspring sex. Females with a pes length of less than 139 mm only produced daughters. Although, mothers pes length did not predict offspring sex (Logistic regression: ChiSq = 2.08, p = 0.151).
Figure 4.
Protein allocation during phase 2B of lactation influences offspring weight into adulthood.
Maternally allocated proteins during phase 2B of lactation influences offspring body weight at fourteen months of age.
Table 1.
Separate analysis of variance for effect of maternal traits on milk composition in phase 2B and phase 3 of lactation in the Tammar wallaby.