Who's your daddy? Male seahorses transport nutrients to embryos
Male seahorse pregnancy could be as complex as female pregnancy

Date:
August 13, 2020
Source:
University of Sydney
Summary:
New research has found male seahorses transport nutrients to their
developing babies during pregnancy. This discovery provides an
opportunity for further comparative evolutionary research.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
New research by Dr Camilla Whittington and her team at the University of
Sydney has found male seahorses transport nutrients to their developing
babies during pregnancy. This discovery provides an opportunity for
further comparative evolutionary research.


========================================================================== Seahorses and their relatives are the only vertebrates that have male pregnancy. The expectant fathers incubate developing babies inside a
pocket called a "brood pouch." We know a male seahorse can have more
than a thousand embryos in the pouch at once but until now, researchers
had limited understanding of how the babies are fed.

"This work adds to the growing evidence that male pregnancy in
seahorses could be as complex as female pregnancy in other animals,
including ourselves," said Dr Whittington, from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences. "We now know that seahorse dads can transport
nutrients to the babies during pregnancy, and we think they do this via
a placenta. It's not exactly like a human placenta though -- they don't
have an umbilical cord, for example. We need to do further histological
work to confirm this." Seahorses are emerging as important model
species for understanding the evolution of live-bearing reproduction,
said Dr Whittington.

"We can draw some parallels between seahorse pregnancy and human
pregnancy," she said. "Seahorse dads seem to do some of the same
things that human mums do, including transporting nutrients and oxygen
to developing embryos, and immune modulation to protect the babies
from infection." The research published in Journal of Comparative
Physiology Bwas led by University of Sydney Honours student Zoe Skalkos
in collaboration with Dr James Van Dyke at La Trobe University.

The study builds on previous genetic evidencesuggesting that male
seahorses might transport nutrients to developing embryos. This new
study confirms, in the first experimental evidence of 'patrotrophy'
(nutrient transport from dad to babies). It also identified one of the
classes of nutrients being transported: energy-rich fats.

"My team is using a range of techniques to investigate the biology of
seahorse pregnancy," Dr Whittington said. "We want to understand more
about the seahorse pouch and the ways it protects and supports the baby seahorses." Honours student Zoe Skalkos, who led the research, said:
"It's really exciting because it's a big step in understanding the
relationship between dad and baby in male pregnancy." Key Points:
* Seahorses and their relatives are the only vertebrates that
have male
pregnancy. Dads incubate developing babies inside a pocket called a
"brood pouch."
* Male seahorses transport nutrients, including fats, to developing
babies
during pregnancy. The babies use these energy-rich fats for growth
and development.

* The new results raise the question of whether seahorse embryos can
influence how much nutrition they can get from dad while they are
in the brood pouch.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Sydney. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Zoe M. G. Skalkos, James U. Van Dyke, Camilla
M. Whittington. Paternal
nutrient provisioning during male pregnancy in the seahorse
Hippocampus abdominalis. Journal of Comparative Physiology B,
2020; DOI: 10.1007/ s00360-020-01289-y ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200813103116.htm

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