Understanding individual variability in behaviours associated with illness in animals

以前对人类的研究表明，病人表现出的许多行为是对抗疾病的协调战略的一部分。本提案中描述的研究侧重于将这些概念应用于农场动物。奶牛是研究疾病行为的极好模型，因为它们被安置在一个高度管理的环境中，疾病的患病率很高。到目前为止，我的团队的工作已经表明，个体对疾病的行为反应存在差异。拟议的研究借鉴了最近关于动物个性的心理学文献（描述个体对静态测试情况的反应差异）和行为生态学关于行为反应规范的文献（描述个体对与奶牛现实生活管理相关的各种外源性和内源性压力源的反应差异）。这个提议的总体目标是描述和理解牛的这些个体特征。了解个体对疾病和其他挑战的不同反应将提高我们利用这些行为来识别患病和高危个体的能力。因此，具体目标是：1)表征牛的人格维度；2)描述牛的行为反应规范，为理解不同个体如何应对环境变化提供一个结构；3)确定对人格和行为反应规范的理解如何解释患病牛和可能生病的牛所表达的行为的个体差异。该研究项目有可能对奶牛和小牛的护理和管理产生深远的影响；尽管迄今为止已有数十年的研究，但这两种疾病的发病率都很高。这些发现将为未来奶牛护理和管理方面旨在预防和治疗疾病的实际创新奠定基础。

Previous work on humans has illustrated that many of the behaviours shown by ill patients are part of a coordinated strategy to fight disease. The research described in this proposal focuses on adapting these concepts to farm animals. Dairy cattle are an excellent model to study sickness behaviours as they are housed in a highly managed environment and the prevalence of illness is high. My group’s work to date has shown variation among individuals in their behavioural responses to disease. The proposed research borrows from recent advances in the psychology literature on personality in animals (to characterize how individuals differ in response to static test situations), and literature from behavioural ecology on behavioural reaction norms (to characterized how individuals differ in their responses to a variety of exogenous and endogenous stressors related to real-life management of dairy cattle). This overall aim of this proposal is to describe and understand these individual characteristics in cattle. Understanding how individuals differ in their response to illness and other challenges will improving our ability to use these behaviours in identifying sick and at-risk individuals. Thus the specific objectives are: 1) to characterizes the personality dimensions in cattle, 2) to describe behavioural reaction norms for cattle, providing a structure for understanding how different individuals respond to environmental variability, and 3) to determine how an understanding of both personality and behavioural reaction norms can account for individual differences in behaviours expressed by ill cattle and cattle likely to become ill. This research program has the potential to have a profound impact on the care and management of dairy cows and calves; both of which suffer from high rates of illness despite decades of research to date. The findings will form the basis for future practical innovations in care and management of dairy cattle that are aimed at preventing and treating disease.