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Mal, M. E., Friend, T. H., Lay, D. C., Vogelsang, S. G., & Jenkins, O. C. (1991). Behavioral responses of mares to short-term confinement and social isolation. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 31(1-2), 13–24.
Abstract: Thirty-six mares, blocked by age and temperament score, were assigned to one of three treatment groups: pasture (P); confinement stalls (C), allowing social contact; isolation stalls (ISS), allowing no contact with conspecifics. After 48 h on treatment, the mares were observed in situ for 1 h. Medium temperament and highly reactive ISS mares spent more time eating grain (P<0.01) and exhibited more grain-eating bouts (P<0.03) than P and C mares. Calm P mares had longer forage-eating bouts than C and ISS mares (P<0.02). During a 15 min open-field test in a 23 m x 23 m pen after 72 h on treatment, ISS mares traveled farther (P<0.005) than C and P mares, spent more total time trotting (P<0.01) than C and P mares, and exhibited a greater number of trotting bouts (P<0.01) than both C and P mares. Isolated mares spent less total time standing during the open-field test than C (P<0.05) and P (P<0.01) mares, but exhibited a greater number of standing bouts than C (P<0.05) and P (P<0.01) mares. Isolated mares also exhibited a greater number of total activity bouts (P<0.01) during the open-field test than both C and P mares; P mares also exhibited fewer activity bouts than C mares (P<0.1). Results indicate that mares kept in confined and isolated environments showed greater motivation for movement and performance of a greater number of activities than those maintained on pasture with conspecifics.
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Rescorla, R. A., & Holland, P. C. (1982). Behavioral Studies of Associative Learning in Animals. Annual Review of Psychology, 33(1), 265–308.
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Sih, A., Bell, A., & Johnson, J. C. (2004). Behavioral syndromes: an ecological and evolutionary overview. Trends. Ecol. Evol, 19(7), 372–378.
Abstract: Recent studies suggest that populations and species often exhibit behavioral syndromes; that is, suites of correlated behaviors across situations. An example is an aggression syndrome where some individuals are more aggressive, whereas others are less aggressive across a range of situations and contexts. The existence of behavioral syndromes focuses the attention of behavioral ecologists on limited (less than optimal) behavioral plasticity and behavioral carryovers across situations, rather than on optimal plasticity in each isolated situation. Behavioral syndromes can explain behaviors that appear strikingly non-adaptive in an isolated context (e.g. inappropriately high activity when predators are present, or excessive sexual cannibalism). Behavioral syndromes can also help to explain the maintenance of individual variation in behavioral types, a phenomenon that is ubiquitous, but often ignored. Recent studies suggest that the behavioral type of an individual, population or species can have important ecological and evolutionary implications, including major effects on species distributions, on the relative tendencies of species to be invasive or to respond well to environmental change, and on speciation rates. Although most studies of behavioral syndromes to date have focused on a few organisms, mainly in the laboratory, further work on other species, particularly in the field, should yield numerous new insights.
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Freire, R., Wilkins, L. J., Short, F., & Nicol, C. J. (2003). Behaviour and welfare of individual laying hens in a non-cage system. Br Poult Sci, 44(1), 22–29.
Abstract: 1. A leg band containing a transponder was fitted to 80 birds in a perchery containing 1,000 birds. 2. The transponder emitted a unique identification number when a bird walked on one of 8 flat antennae on the floor. The recording apparatus was used to measure the amount of time that each of the tagged birds spent on the slatted and littered areas in a 6-week period. 3. Some birds spent long periods of time on the slats, possibly as a means of avoiding repeated attacks. Duration on the slats was greatest in birds with the worst (as opposed to better) feather scores of the head, back and tail regions. 4. Birds that spent long periods on the slats were lighter than other birds at both 39 weeks of age and 72 weeks of age and had greater back, head and tail feather damage, consistent with these birds being victims of pecking. 5. Tagged birds received a social avoidance test outside the perchery at 39 weeks of age, which suggested that birds retreated to the slats in response to pecks rather than just to close proximity to other birds. 6. The failure to find that duration on the slats was related to anatomical indicators of stress (liver, spleen and bursa of Fabricius) suggests that retreating to the slats following pecking attenuates physiological stress responses. 7. We conclude that the provision of areas where birds in a large group can avoid pecking may improve the welfare of a minority of victimised birds.
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Sighieri, C., Tedeschi, D., De Andreis, C., Petri, L., & Baragli, P. (2003). Behaviour Patterns of Horses Can be Used to Establish a Dominant-Subordinate Relationship Between Man and Horse. Animal Welfare, 12(4), 705–708.
Abstract: This paper describes how man can enter the social hierarchy of the horse by mimicking the behaviour and stance it uses to establish dominance. A herd is organised according to a dominance hierarchy established by means of ritualised conflict. Dominance relationships are formed through these confrontations: one horse gains the dominant role and others identify themselves as subordinates. This study was conducted using five females of the Haflinger breed, totally unaccustomed to human contact, from a free-range breeding farm. The study methods were based on the three elements fundamental to the equilibrium of the herd: flight, herd instinct and hierarchy. The trainer-horse relationship was established in three phases: retreat, approach and association. At the end of the training sessions, all of the horses were able to respond correctly to the trainer. These observations suggest that it is possible to manage unhandled horses without coercion by mimicking their behaviour patterns.
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Sighieri, C., Tedeschi, D., De Andreis, C., Petri, L., & Baragli, P. (2003). Behaviour patterns of horses can be used to establish a dominantsubordinate relationship between man and horse. Animal Welfare, 12, 705–708.
Abstract: This paper describes how man can enter the social hierarchy of the horse by mimicking the behaviour and stance it uses to establish dominance. A herd is organised according to a dominance hierarchy established by means of ritualised conflict. Dominance relationships are formed through these confrontations: one horse gains the dominant role and others identify themselves as subordinates. This study was conducted using five females of the Haflinger breed, totally unaccustomed to human contact, from a free-range breeding farm. The study methods were based on the three elements fundamental to the equilibrium of the herd: flight, herd instinct and hierarchy. The trainer-horse relationship was established in three phases: retreat, approach and association. At the end of the training sessions, all of the horses were able to respond correctly to the trainer. These observations suggest that it is possible to manage unhandled horses without coercion by mimicking their behaviour patterns.
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Weng, R. C., Edwards, S. A., & English, P. R. (1998). Behaviour, social interactions and lesion scores of group-housed sows in relation to floor space allowance. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 59(4), 307–316.
Abstract: The space allowance appropriate for sows in group housing remains scientifically undefined, since the social space requirement of a group of animals and the factors which affect this are unknown. Eight established groups of six pregnant, multiparous sows were used in a replicated Latin Square design of experiment, with 7 day periods, to compare four pen sizes providing 2.0, 2.4, 3.6 or 4.8 m2/sow. For the last 48 h of each 7 day period, a continuous video recording was made to determine general behaviour and all social interactions. Time spent rooting increased progressively with increasing space allowance, whereas time spent sitting and standing inactive were both progressively reduced. The total frequency of social interactions and aggressive behaviour both increased with decreasing space allowance. The Attack:Retreat ratio was significantly higher, and the Avoidance Index significantly lower, in the smallest pen. All body regions had the highest count of lesions after sows had been in the smallest pen, with damage levels being reduced as pen area increased. Analysis of body lesion scores, combining incidence and severity, gave the same treatment effects. In conclusion, the results indicated that a minimum space of between 2.4 and 3.6 m2/sow was necessary in the conditions of this experiment to promote good welfare. This result cannot be generalised to situations of different group size, group stability or feeding method.
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Leliveld, L. M. C., Düpjan, S., Tuchscherer, A., & Puppe, B. (2016). Behavioural and physiological measures indicate subtle variations in the emotional valence of young pigs. Physiol. Behav., 157, 116–124.
Abstract: Abstract In the study of animal emotions, emotional valence has been found to be difficult to measure. Many studies of farm animals' emotions have therefore focussed on the identification of indicators of strong, mainly negative, emotions. However, subtle variations in emotional valence, such as those caused by rather moderate differences in husbandry conditions, may also affect animals' mood and welfare when such variations occur consistently. In this study, we investigated whether repeated moderate aversive or rewarding events could lead to measurable differences in emotional valence in young, weaned pigs. We conditioned 105 female pigs in a test arena to either a repeated startling procedure (sudden noises or appearances of objects) or a repeated rewarding procedure (applesauce, toy and straw) over 11 sessions. Control pigs were also regularly exposed to the same test arena but without conditioning. Before and after conditioning, we measured heart rate and its variability as well as the behavioural reactions of the subjects in the test arena, with a special focus on detailed acoustic analyses of their vocalisations. The behavioural and heart rate measures were analysed as changes compared to the baseline values before conditioning. A limited number of the putative indicators of emotional valence were affected by the conditioning. We found that the negatively conditioned pigs showed changes that were significantly different from those in control pigs, namely a decrease in locomotion and an increase in standing. The positively conditioned pigs, however, showed a stronger increase in heart rate and a smaller decrease in SDNN (a heart rate variability parameter indicating changes in autonomic regulation) compared to the controls. Compared to the negatively conditioned pigs, the positively conditioned pigs produced fewer vocalisations overall as well as fewer low-frequency grunts but more high-frequency grunts. The low-frequency grunts of the negatively conditioned pigs also showed lower frequency parameters (bandwidth, maximum frequency, 25% and 50% quartiles) compared to those of the positively conditioned pigs. In any of the statistically significant results, the conditioning accounted for 1.5–11.9% of variability in the outcome variable. Hence, we conclude that repeated moderate aversive and rewarding events have weak but measurable effects on some aspects of behaviour and physiology in young pigs, possibly indicating changes in emotional valence, which could ultimately affect their welfare. The combination of ethophysiological indicators, i.e., the concurrent examination of heart rate measures, behavioural responses and especially vocalisation patterns, as used in the current study, might be a useful way of examining subtle effects on emotional valence in further studies.
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Sousa, C., Okamoto, S., & Matsuzawa, T. (2003). Behavioural development in a matching-to-sample task and token use by an infant chimpanzee reared by his mother. Anim. Cogn., 6(4), 259–267.
Abstract: We investigated the behavioural and cognitive development of a captive male infant chimpanzee, Ayumu, raised by his mother, Ai. Here we report Ayumu's achievements up to the age of 2 years and 3 months, in the context of complex computer-controlled tasks. From soon after birth, Ayumu had been present during an experiment performed by his mother. The task consisted of two phases, a matching-to-sample task in which she received token rewards, and the insertion of these tokens into a vending machine to obtain food rewards. Ayumu himself received no reward or encouragement from humans for any of the actions he exhibited during the experiment. At the age of 9 months and 3 weeks, Ayumu performed his first matching-to-sample trial. At around 1 year and 3 months, he began to perform them consistently. Also during this period, he frequently stole food rewards from his mother. At 2 years and 3 months, Ayumu succeeded for the first time in inserting a token into the vending machine. Once he had succeeded in using a token, he performed both phases of the task in sequence 20 times consecutively. The infant's behaviour was not shaped by food rewards but by a strong motivation to copy his mother's behaviour. Our observations of Ayumu thus mirror the learning processes shown by wild chimpanzees.
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Stennett, C. R., & Strauss, R. E. (2010). Behavioural lateralization in zebrafish and four related species of minnows (Osteichthyes: Cyprinidae). Anim. Behav., 79(6), 1339–1342.
Abstract: Behavioural lateralization has been observed in many species of fishes during stimulus-specific tasks. However, one area that has been overlooked is the study of naïve side bias in motor behaviour of fishes in the absence of direct visual stimulus. To this end, we examined naïve side biases in motor behaviour in five species of minnows (Osteichthyes: Cyprinidae). Fifteen individuals of each species were subjected to a T-shaped test arena, with 40 randomized replicates per individual. We took advantage of rheotaxis by running a slow current of water through each arm of the test apparatus. Of the 75 individuals tested, 55 showed a rightward turning preference. The overall right-biased behaviour observed in these fishes in the absence of systematic stimulus strongly suggests that a stimulus-free control condition be included in the experimental design whenever plausible for studies of laterality in fishes and presumably in other organisms.
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