The ecology of gestational growth in a wild cooperative mammal

In wild mammals, early postnatal growth strongly affects offspring survival and fitness, but little is known about the causes and consequences of variation in prenatal growth. We investigated whether gestational weight gains vary according to maternal traits and social and environmental conditions, and how prenatal growth affects the fates of the resulting offspring, using an exceptionally large sample of repeated pregnant body weight records from individually recognizable wild meerkats (Suricata suricatta). Pregnant meerkats' body weights remained stable during the first half of gestation and then increased linearly until they gave birth. Gestational weight gains were more rapid under favourable environmental conditions and when mothers were experimentally food-supplemented, suggesting that nutrition strongly determines prenatal growth. While social conditions and reproductive competition shape postnatal growth in many social vertebrates (including meerkats), these factors had a limited effect on prenatal growth, and adjustment to gestation lengths were modest and unrelated to social factors. Pups that grew faster in utero were heavier when they emerged from the birth burrow yet this rapid growth was not associated with shortened leukocyte telomeres, and they were consequently more likely to survive to adulthood. Broadly, we identified pronounced variation in gestational weight gains, which is largely driven by food availability and strongly predicts offspring birth weights and survival. Our findings also highlight constraints in the flexibility of prenatal growth and gestation lengths in this species, which may limit adjustments in response to prevailing social conditions, and enhance selection for flexibility in postnatal growth.