Lactation: historical patterns and potential for manipulation.

The advent of biotechnology has made data on undomesticated mammals relevant to dairy science. Such data indicate the potential of lactation for modification, reveal genetic material available for use through bioengineering, help distinguish adaptive features from historical artifacts, and clarify limits on lactational diversity that date from early evolution. Evolutionary analysis indicates that a complex degree of lactation preceded divergence of the extant mammalian lineages during the Mesozoic Era. Although aspects of monotreme lactation appear to be ancestral for extant mammals, the marsupials and eutherians exhibit divergent specializations. Evidence is consistent with the idea that protolacteal glands evolved by combining features of skin gland populations into a new functional complex. Secretions of these ancestral glands may have had antimicrobial properties that protected the eggs or hatchlings and organic components that supplemented offspring nutrition. Following development of highly nutritious milks, evolution produced diversity in milk composition and function, milk output, length of lactation, mammary gland anatomy, and contributions of lactation to offspring nutrition. Certain marsupials are specialized in terms of functional independence and temporal plasticity of mammary tissues. Mammalian diversity indicates that artificial selection and physiological manipulation of domestic artiodactyls has only modestly exploited the potential of mammary glands as a nutritional source for humans.