PART II
Evolutionary Ramifications of Pregnancy
Several forms of selection motivate and in turn become amplified by the gestational phenomena described in part I. The chapters in part II address these evolutionary forces. Chapter 6 explains how natural selection can affect mammalian (including human) pregnancies; chapter 7 discusses how sexual selection emanates from and affects piscine pregnancies; and chapter 8 reexamines these topics from the vantage point of comparative evolution. The chapters in part II have the following overarching themes: (a) various forms of pregnancy represent extreme expressions of gender-biased parental care that in effect amplify the inherent intersexual (male versus female) tensions that originated millions of millennia ago during the evolutionary emergence of anisogamy and sexual reproduction; (b) pregnancy (like many other aspects of ontogeny) entails compromises and trade-offs between opposing selective forces; and (c) pregnancy from an evolutionary perspective is as much about conflict as it is about unbridled cooperation among mother, child, father, and copies of their respective genes.