Laboratory soundscapes: optimising acoustic environments for avian welfare

实验室声景：优化声学环境以促进鸟类福利

• 批准号: BB/R003777/1
• 负责人: Karen Spencer
• 金额: $ 78.78万
• 依托单位: University of St Andrews
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FR003777%2F1
• 关键词: Laboratory; soundscapes; optimising; acoustic; environments

Music has profound effects on our mood, increasing happiness and decreasing anxiety. It is commonly believed that music has similar effects in other animals, and music is often played to captive animals to improve their welfare. However, we actually know very little about the long-term effects of music on animals. In fact, music may not be the most appropriate form of acoustic enrichment. The idea that the sounds animals hear when in captivity, in scientific studies or on a farm, can enhance quality of life is an important one. Over four million animals are used in scientific experiments each year in the UK alone, with a further 100 million estimated worldwide. Maximising the welfare of these animals is an important focus of many policy-making bodies, including the UK Government and European Parliament. The central aim of many of these policy makers is to develop best practices based on scientific data to improve the health and wellbeing of animals used in scientific procedures. One way that we could create better environments for captive animals is to enrich the acoustic surroundings (soundscapes) within their enclosures. However, there are no data on the types of sounds that animals would prefer to hear. This is the obvious first step in informing our idea of what an enriched soundscape sounds like. Listening to preferred soundscapes could reduce stress, limit the impact of anthropogenic noises associated with captivity (e.g. machinery) and reduce anxiety. This could lead to an overall increase in physiological welfare indicators and mean healthier and happier animals. We intend to test this hypothesis using several innovative experiments. We will do this using the zebra finch, which are arguably the most extensively studied songbirds in the world. They account for the majority of the 300,000 songbirds used annually for studies on social behaviour, cognition, neurobiology, physiology, auditory perception, and welfare in research laboratories worldwide. Yet despite being an important model species, almost nothing is known about how acoustic environments in captivity impact their health and wellbeing. Firstly we will discover what sounds zebra finches prefer to hear by giving them the choice between a range of man-made, natural and music-like sounds. Once we have this information we will use it to construct two experimental soundscapes that represent enrichment, one based on natural sounds the other on music-like stimuli. We can compare birds living in these environments to those in 'normal' soundscapes and a group that has anthropogenic sounds removed by soundproofing. We will then look at adult bird health, stress levels and behaviour over an eight month period to establish how long-term exposure to enriched sounds impacts on welfare. After this we will determine the effects of our soundscapes on breeding performance and the effects of hearing these sounds during development of the offspring. In all birds we will focus on measuring traits that we know relate to health and wellbeing, including stress levels, anxiety behaviour, immunocompetence, social cohesion and damage to cells by oxidative molecules. The final part of the study will investigate whether enriched soundscapes can increase the likelihood of birds to participate in behavioural experiments (to learn about a new object or food source). This type of experiment often requires training the birds and in most studies 10-20% of animals do not engage with the task. This may be due to high stress levels during tests, which soundscapes may be able to ameliorate. Overall our work aims to enhance avian welfare in a laboratory setting, and we are confident that it will have repercussions beyond this into other environments, such as farmed birds. In addition we will be able to produce a significant refinement of current welfare protocols. We also suggest that the work will lead to significant reductions in the numbers of animals used in behavioural experiments.

音乐对我们的情绪有深远的影响，增加快乐，减少焦虑。人们普遍认为，音乐对其他动物也有类似的作用，人们经常给圈养的动物播放音乐，以提高它们的福利。然而，我们实际上对音乐对动物的长期影响知之甚少。事实上，音乐可能不是最合适的声音丰富形式。动物在圈养、科学研究或农场中听到的声音可以提高生活质量，这是一个重要的观点。仅在英国，每年就有400多万只动物被用于科学实验，据估计全世界还有1亿只。最大限度地提高这些动物的福利是许多决策机构的一个重要焦点，包括英国政府和欧洲议会。许多这些决策者的中心目标是根据科学数据制定最佳做法，以改善科学程序中使用的动物的健康和福祉。我们可以为圈养动物创造更好的环境的一种方法是丰富它们围栏内的声学环境（音景）。然而，没有数据表明动物更喜欢听到哪种类型的声音。这是让我们了解丰富的音景是什么样子的第一步。听喜欢的音景可以减轻压力，限制与囚禁有关的人为噪音（如机器）的影响，并减少焦虑。这可能导致生理福利指标的整体增加，意味着动物更健康、更快乐。我们打算用几个创新的实验来检验这个假设。我们将用斑胸草雀来做这个实验，斑胸草雀可以说是世界上研究最广泛的鸣禽。它们占全世界研究实验室每年用于社会行为、认知、神经生物学、生理学、听觉感知和福利研究的30万只鸣禽中的大多数。然而，尽管它们是一种重要的模式物种，但人们对圈养环境如何影响它们的健康和福祉几乎一无所知。首先，我们将发现斑胸草雀更喜欢听什么声音，让它们在一系列人造的、自然的和类似音乐的声音中做出选择。一旦我们有了这些信息，我们将用它来构建两个代表丰富的实验声景，一个基于自然声音，另一个基于类似音乐的刺激。我们可以将生活在这些环境中的鸟类与生活在“正常”音景中的鸟类以及通过隔音消除人为声音的鸟类进行比较。然后，我们将在8个月的时间里观察成年鸟的健康状况、压力水平和行为，以确定长期接触丰富的声音对福利的影响。在此之后，我们将确定我们的声景对繁殖性能的影响，以及在后代发育过程中听到这些声音的影响。在所有鸟类中，我们将重点测量我们所知道的与健康和福祉相关的特征，包括压力水平、焦虑行为、免疫能力、社会凝聚力和氧化分子对细胞的损害。研究的最后一部分将调查是否丰富的音景可以增加鸟类参与行为实验的可能性（以了解新的物体或食物来源）。这种类型的实验通常需要训练鸟类，在大多数研究中，10-20%的动物不参与这项任务。这可能是由于测试期间的高压力水平，这种音景可能能够改善。总的来说，我们的工作旨在提高实验室环境下的鸟类福利，我们相信这将对其他环境产生影响，例如养殖鸟类。此外，我们将能够对当前的福利协议进行重大改进。我们还建议，这项工作将大大减少用于行为实验的动物数量。