Recently, a paper titled From land to sea: Unique evolution in reproductive strategies of marine mammals, with Jun Liu as the first author and Prof. Peijun Zhang as the corresponding author from the Department of Marine Mammal and Marine Bioacoustics, was published in the international academic journal The Innovation Life. This study summarizes the unique reproductive strategies and adaptive evolution of marine mammals, revealing complex evolutionary innovations in morphology, physiology, and behavior that these animals have developed in response to new aquatic environments during their transition from terrestrial to marine habitats, such as embryonic diapause, high-energy milk, and testicular cooling systems. The study also emphasizes that the unique reproductive strategies of marine mammals are the result of adapting to marine environmental challenges and points out that in the era of advancing omics technologies, developing international data and technology cooperation and sharing will provide new research pathways for uncovering the genetic basis of these reproductive innovations, which is significant for species conservation.

Figure 1. Schematic illustration of the unique evolutionary adaptations in marine mammal reproductive strategies. (A) Embryonic diapause. (B) High-energy milk. (C) Cooling system. (D) Underwater nursing.