WHY do mammals produce milk rather than simply feed their young regurgitated food, as many birds do? A new model suggests lactation evolved to help animals cope with patchy food supplies.
Biologists have long wondered why mammals evolved this ability, as converting food into milk costs females a lot of energy.
Sasha Dall of the University of Cambridge and Ian Boyd of the University of St Andrews, UK, have created a mathematical model that measures the success of feeding strategies in terms of factors such as the probability of finding food, the energy spent on foraging and producing milk, and…
