Assessing welfare in fish: the answer is in the water!

评估鱼类的福利：答案就在水中！

• 批准号: NC/K001086/1
• 负责人: Ioanna Katsiadaki
• 金额: $ 46.3万
• 依托单位: Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NC%2FK001086%2F1
• 关键词: Assessing; welfare; fish; answer; water

Fish as second class vertebrates: Both the public and the research community have somewhat lower moral standards for scientific procedures involving fish than mammals. This is probably due to the difficulty in empathising with the evolutionarily more distant fish. The perceptions that fish do not experience feelings and emotions and do not merit quality care need to be challenged. There is a widely recognised lack of detailed manuals and guidance for care and housing of experimental fish. Currently it is unclear if fish would benefit from environmental enrichment during holding and experimentation and the majority are held in bare aquaria. Conditions are deemed acceptable if fish just survive, grow and reproduce. Happy fish: We believe that there is a difference between survive and thrive and we therefore wish to pursue a novel idea; the development and validation of measures of 'good' welfare (as opposed to indicators of 'poor' welfare) in fish. We believe that measurements of biochemical brain messengers (brain monoamines, BMAs) have the potential to provide such a means. Serotonin, for example, contributes to feelings of well-being in humans, is widely acknowledged as our mood hormone, and is often referred to as the "happy molecule''. Dopamine also plays important roles in behaviour, cognition, voluntary movement, motivation, punishment and reward, sleep, mood, attention, working memory and learning. Adrenaline participates in the fight-or-flight response and melatonin has been shown to be effective in treating one form of depression and seasonal affective disorder. The strong relationships between BMAs and 'mood' are reflected by the fact that these molecules are the standard target for drugs to treat human depression. Research over the past 30 years has established great similarities between fish and mammalian BMA systems . Dopamine and serotonin levels (and their oxidized amine metabolites) have previously been measured in the brains of fish, with responses to stress being well-documented. Look in the water: Most objective methods for assessing welfare in fish (i.e. not utilising behavioural observations alone) suffer from a great drawback: the need to sample invasively (i.e. by drawing blood) or even lethally (brain tissue for measuring BMAs levels). This makes them highly unsuitable for routine assessment and monitoring. Our team at Cefas has pioneered the non-invasive measurement of cortisol, a well-documented stress hormone, as well as various sex steroids and melatonin in fish by measuring them in the water rather than the blood. We also have preliminary data suggesting that serotonin is also excreted in the water in measurable concentrations. Hence our extensive experience to date suggests that many important molecules that act within the brain and the body are excreted, secreted or leak out of fish into the water (through the gills, skin, urine and faeces) and can be measured non-invasively in the water. What is a good aquarium? Our experimental plan includes three widely used laboratory fish species (zebrafish, trout and stickleback) and three different holding conditions (standard-as per manuals and common practices; optimum- standard + appropriate environmental enrichment based on the behaviour and ecology of the species e.g. substratum, water current, shelter etc; sub-standard- standard + mild stressors such as netting, chasing, exposure to noise). The science bit: Water samples will be collected and extracts will go through a number of analytical tests to identify a marker of welfare and develop a method that allows routine measurements to be made. In all experiments, the water chemistry profile will be linked to both behaviour and the levels of cortisol, a measure of stress.

鱼类是第二类脊椎动物：公众和研究界对涉及鱼类的科学程序的道德标准比哺乳动物低。这可能是由于很难与进化上更遥远的鱼类产生共鸣。人们认为鱼没有感情和情绪，不值得高质量的护理，这种看法需要受到挑战。人们普遍认识到，缺乏详细的手册和指导，照顾和住房的实验鱼。目前尚不清楚鱼类在饲养和实验期间是否会从环境富集中受益，大多数鱼类被饲养在裸露的水族馆中。如果鱼类只是生存、生长和繁殖，条件被认为是可以接受的。快乐的鱼：我们认为，生存和繁荣之间存在差异，因此我们希望追求一个新的想法;发展和验证鱼类“良好”福利的措施（而不是“不良”福利的指标）。我们认为，测量生化脑信使（脑单胺，BMAs）有可能提供这样一种手段。例如，血清素有助于人类的幸福感，被广泛认为是我们的情绪激素，通常被称为“快乐分子”。多巴胺还在行为、认知、自主运动、动机、惩罚和奖励、睡眠、情绪、注意力、工作记忆和学习中发挥重要作用。肾上腺素参与战斗或逃跑反应，褪黑激素已被证明对治疗一种形式的抑郁症和季节性情感障碍有效。BMA和“情绪”之间的密切关系反映在这些分子是治疗人类抑郁症的药物的标准靶点这一事实上。过去30年的研究已经确定了鱼类和哺乳动物BMA系统之间的巨大相似性。多巴胺和5-羟色胺水平（以及它们的氧化胺代谢物）以前曾在鱼的大脑中进行过测量，对压力的反应也有很好的记录。看看水里：大多数评估鱼类福利的客观方法（即不单独利用行为观察）都有一个很大的缺点：需要侵入性地（即通过抽血）甚至致命地（脑组织用于测量BMA水平）取样。这使得它们非常不适合常规评估和监测。我们在Cefas的团队开创了非侵入性测量皮质醇的先河，皮质醇是一种有据可查的应激激素，以及鱼类中的各种性类固醇和褪黑激素，通过在水中而不是血液中测量它们。我们也有初步的数据表明血清素也以可测量的浓度排泄在水中。因此，我们迄今为止的丰富经验表明，许多在大脑和身体内起作用的重要分子被排泄、分泌或从鱼体内泄漏到水中（通过鳃、皮肤、尿液和粪便），并且可以在水中进行非侵入性测量。什么是好的水族馆？我们的实验计划包括三种广泛使用的实验室鱼类（斑马鱼，鳟鱼和棘鱼）和三种不同的保持条件（标准-根据手册和惯例;最佳-标准+基于物种的行为和生态的适当环境富集，例如底层，水流，庇护所等;低于标准-标准+温和的压力源，如网，追逐，暴露于噪音）。关于科学：将收集水样，提取物将经过一些分析测试，以确定福利的标志，并制定一种方法，允许进行常规测量。在所有的实验中，水的化学特征将与行为和皮质醇水平（一种压力的衡量标准）联系起来。