Abstract: The Swedish riding horse population includes about 6000 broodmares and 150 breeding stallions. The overall breeding goal is to produce riding horses competitive in several disciplines, i.e. dressage as well as showjumping and eventing. The effectiveness of this multi-purpose objective was studied in alternative strategies for selecting stallions and mares as candidate dams for them. The alternative selection strategies for stallions included 1-stage (conformation), 2-stage (conformation and performance test) and 3-stage (conformation, performance test and competition results at advanced levels) selection schemes. The mare selection schemes included the corresponding 1- and 2-stage selection schemes. The results clearly showed the 2-stage selection procedure to be most efficient, especially for stallions. It is important that the intensity in selection after the performance test is kept high. Differences in defining the breeding objective are less important, provided the selection is based on a performance test including both dressage and jumping. According to the results, the development of the Swedish performance testing scheme, in which now only 30% of the tested stallions are selected for breeding, seems justified. In mare selection schemes, performance tests also seem to be justified, especially if jumping ability is to be improved. Differences between field and station tests are only minor and since the volume of testing can be much higher in the field this would allow a much stronger selection and should thus be preferred.

Abstract: A literature review of the equine learning research conducted in the past 20 yr revealed that the purpose of most of the studies was to determine whether horses respond to learning situations in the same way that other animals do. The results indicated that horses can discriminate many different types of stimuli, and they learn through stimulus-response- reinforcement chains. Most equine learning studies have utilized learning tasks depending on primary positive reinforcement to get the horses to work the tests. Yet, the majority of horse trainers use negative reinforcement more often than primary positive reinforcement in their training procedures. Therefore, past research often did not have a direct application to training methods commonly utilized in the horse industry. Research also demonstrated that 1) early experiences of horses can affect learning ability later, 2) equine memory is efficient and 3) concentrating learning mals in long training sessions decreases equine learning efficiency. Many factors that might affect equine learning ability and be applicable to training practices in the horse industry have not been thoroughly investigated; for example, interactions between nutrition and learning and between exercise and learning, the use of negative and secondary reinforcements in horse training, and the horse's ability to make few initial errors compared to its ability to eliminate errors as training progresses all require investigation in future equine learning studies. N1 -

Abstract: Abstract 10.1002/ajp.1350200409.abs Instead of close and differentiated relationships among adult females, the accepted norm for savanna baboons, groups of Drakensberg mountain baboons (Papio ursinus) showed strong affiliation of females towards a single male. The same male was usually the decision-making animal in controlling group movements. Lactating or pregnant females focused their grooming on this “leader” male, producing a radially patterned sociogram, as in the desert baboon (P. hamadryas); the leader male supported young animals in the group against aggression and protected them against external threats. Unlike typical savanna baboons, these mountain baboons rarely displayed approach-retreat or triadic interactions, and entirely lacked coalitions among adult females. Both groups studied were reproductively one-male; male-female relationships in one were like those in a unit of a hamadryas male at his peak, while the other group resembled the unit of an old hamadryas male, who still leads the group, with a male follower starting to build up a new unit and already monopolizing mating. In their mountain environment, where the low population density suggests conditions as harsh for baboons as in deserts, adults in these groups kept unusually large distances apart during ranging; kin tended to range apart, and spacing of adults was greatest at the end of the dry, winter season. These facts support the hypothesis that sparse food is responsible for convergence with hamadryas social organization. It is suggested that all baboons, though matrilocal, are better categorized as “cross-sex-bonded” than “female bonded”.

Abstract: The concept of resource management has gone hand in hand with group selection arguments. For this reason, it has been cast aside in the era of evolutionary theory which assumes that foraging strategies must have evolved under selection operating to maximise an individual's inclusive fitness. However, results from empirical studies show that under favourable environmental and social circumstances, resource management could be selectively advantageous. Much of the recent literature on plant-herbivore interactions suggest that herbivory can result in changes in the resource base which are assumed to increase the intake and fitness of the herbivore. As a result, a number of authors suggest that herbivores manage their resource utilisation to maximise the flow of nutrients from these resources. Long term territoriality or the exclusive use of a home range are the social systems most likely to favour selection for prudent resource exploitation. This review argues that, in many habitats, resource management strategies are not feasible, as individuals have little control over the way resources are depleted and renewed. Thus far, very little evidence is available showing that herbivorous mammals actively manage the resources which they utilise.

Abstract: n a herd of semi-captive plains zebras interventions, which occurred within the harems, were investigated in order to answer the question why zebras interfered. These interventions are of interest because they regulate the contacts between companions and because, as corrective and preventive measures, they reveal the normative principles underlying the behaviours by which animals structure their social environment. An attempt was made to deduce 1) the internal norms of the interferer; 2) his short term aims; 3) his tactis and 4) his perception of the social environment. The analysis revealed that in the case of an affiliative interaction foals, yearlings and adult mares started to interfere if a friend had an affiliative contact with another zebra. In view of the interferer's behaviours it was concluded that their aim was to break off the ongoing interaction and that zebras tended to protect friendship bonds. Foals and yearlings further interfered if their mother was being threatened, attacked or sexually approached by a stallion. In view of the interferer's behaviours its aim was to prevent iminent interactions or to break off ongoing interactions. This suggests that these interventions were of a protective nature. The interferer's behaviours in both contexts ware very much alike. Mares tended to interfere if their foal/yearling or adult daughter was threathened or aggressed or if a mare friend was being sexually approached by a stallion. This type of intervention was of a protective nature. Stallions in a multi male harem showed a high tendency to interfere in courtship interactions. From the resemblance between interventions in courtship and in aggressive interactions it is concluded that, at leat in a number of cases, the individuals have perceived courtship behaviour by the stallion as a threat towards the mare involved.