Promoting contest skill to reduce the welfare costs of animal agonistic interactions

提高竞赛技能以降低动物竞争性互动的福利成本

• 批准号: BB/W000563/1
• 负责人: Simon Turner
• 金额: $ 58.94万
• 依托单位: Scotland's Rural College
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FW000563%2F1
• 关键词: Promoting; contest; skill; reduce; welfare

SummaryAggression is a major and routine challenge to welfare in many species of managed animals despite decades of research aimed at minimising it. Aggression also affects health, survival and fitness in wild populations. Aggressive contests accrue physical (e.g. injuries), emotional and energetic costs. Individuals vary greatly in the costs paid during aggressive contests, irrespective of whether they win or lose. Some individuals can resolve contests quickly with minimal costs. The mechanism by which they achieve this is unknown and, until we understand it, reducing the welfare penalty of aggression will be difficult. Our aims are to determine a) whether skill facilitates contest resolution and thus reduces contest costs, and (b), if so, whether husbandry practices can be manipulated to promote skilful fighting, reduce contest costs and enhance welfare and production in a commercial setting. The project uses pigs as they offer an ideal model system and because most of the one billion pigs slaughtered annually experience significant aggression. One large experiment will address all objectives below:1. Characterise and quantify skill in contest aggression and defence2. Determine the effect of the social developmental environment and contest experience on skill3. Assess the contribution of socio-cognitive ability and assessment strategy to skill4. Quantify the relationship between skill and conventional measures of fighting ability and aggressiveness5. Determine whether contest skill reduces the welfare costs of aggression in a commercially realistic scenarioContests demand the use of complex behaviours. Skill is influential in human sporting contests, yet remarkably its role in animal aggressive contests is almost entirely unstudied. A recent framework has proposed that contest skill comprises efficient, accurate, precise and appropriate behavioural execution. We will test this framework and quantify skill by its effects on contest success and costs (Obj. 1). Variation in commercially relevant early-life opportunities for play fighting experience and minimally-damaging contest experience will test their effects on later contest skill (Obj. 2). Behaviour must be underpinned by rapid and well-informed decisions, which requires that animals assimilate and process complex information and turn it into knowledge (termed cognitive ability). Whether cognitive ability improves the behavioural execution of skill is unknown. A specific cognitive challenge during contests is to gather information and use this to decide when to give up. Several classes of information-gathering model have been developed. In the simplest, termed self assessment, animals make fight decisions based purely on their own fighting ability and stamina, without reference to the ability of an opponent. After a threshold amount of energy has been spent on fighting, the individual will give up. In a second class, termed mutual assessment, animals self assess but also assess the fighting ability of an opponent. Although more complex, it allows an animal to quickly withdraw from a fight it is likely to lose and substantially reduces the costs paid. Hence, Obj. 3 will test whether cognitive ability and individual use of assessment strategy promote skill as reflected in appropriate and efficient behaviour. In doing so we provide the first quantification of assessment strategies at the individual animal level. Obj. 4 will also quantify whether superiority in other determinants of fighting ability (e.g. weight) and an aggressive personality enhance or suppress skill. Crucially the project also has applied relevance. Obj. 2 will inform how management can promote skill in dyadic contests. Importantly, in Obj. 5 pigs will be regrouped in a commercially-realistic way (groups of 12 animals) to test whether skill in paired contests improves welfare in a real-world scenario.

尽管数十年的研究旨在将其最小化，但在许多托管动物中，摘要侵略是对许多托管动物的福利的重大挑战。侵略还会影响野生人群的健康，生存和健身。积极的竞赛会产生身体上的身体（例如伤害），情感和充满活力的成本。个人在积极竞赛中所支付的费用差异很大，而不管他们获胜还是输。一些人可以以最低的成本快速解决比赛。他们实现这一目标的机制是未知的，直到我们理解它，减少侵略的福利惩罚将很困难。我们的目的是确定a）技能是否有助于竞赛解决方案，从而降低竞赛成本，以及（b），如果可以的话，是否可以操纵畜牧业来促进熟练的战斗，降低竞赛成本并在商业环境中提高福利和生产。该项目使用猪提供理想的模型系统，因为十亿猪每年屠宰的大多数猪都会遭受重大的侵略性。一个大型实验将解决以下所有目标：1。表征和量化比赛侵略和防御的技能2。确定社会发展环境和竞赛经验对技能的影响3。评估社会认知能力和评估策略对技能的贡献4。量化战斗能力和进攻性的技能和常规措施之间的关系5。确定比赛技能是否会降低商业上现实的情景中的侵略成本，要求使用复杂的行为。技能在人类体育比赛中具有影响力，但它在动物侵略性比赛中的作用几乎完全没有研究。最近的框架提出，比赛技能包括有效，准确，精确和适当的行为执行。我们将通过对比赛成功和成本的影响来测试此框架并量化技能（OBJ。1）。商业上相关的早期生活机会的差异和最小的竞赛经验的变化将测试其对以后竞赛技能的影响（OBJ。2）。行为必须以快速且信息良好的决策为基础，这要求动物同化并处理复杂的信息并将其转化为知识（称为认知能力）。认知能力是否改善技能的行为执行尚不清楚。比赛期间的特定认知挑战是收集信息并使用它来决定何时放弃。已经开发了几类信息收集模型。在最简单，被称为自我评估的情况下，动物纯粹基于自己的战斗能力和耐力做出战斗决策，而没有提及对手的能力。在战斗上花费了大量精力之后，个人将放弃。在第二类，称为相互评估，动物自我评估，但也评估对手的战斗能力。尽管更复杂，但它允许动物迅速退出战斗，它可能会损失并大大降低所支付的费用。因此，OBJ。 3将测试认知能力和个人使用评估策略是否促进了在适当有效的行为中所反映的技能。在此过程中，我们在单个动物层面提供了评估策略的首次量化。 OBJ。 4还将量化战斗能力（例如体重）的其他决定因素的优势和侵略性的人格增强或抑制技能。至关重要的是，该项目也应用了相关性。 OBJ。 2将告知管理层如何促进二元比赛的技能。重要的是，在OBJ中。 5只猪将以商业化的方式（12只动物组）进行重组，以测试在现实情况下，配对比赛中的技能是否可以改善福利。