Understanding individual variability in behaviours associated with illness in animals

以前在人类身上的研究表明，患病患者表现出的许多行为是抗击疾病的协调战略的一部分。这项提案中描述的研究重点是将这些概念应用于农场动物。奶牛是研究疾病行为的一个很好的模型，因为它们被饲养在高度管理的环境中，而且疾病的流行率很高。到目前为止，我的团队的研究表明，个体对疾病的行为反应存在差异。拟议的研究借鉴了关于动物人格的心理学文献的最新进展(以表征个体对静态测试情况的不同反应)，以及行为生态学关于行为反应规范的文献(以表征个体对与现实生活中的奶牛管理相关的各种外源性和内源性应激源的不同反应)。这项建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反应有何不同，将提高我们利用这些行为识别患病和高危个体的能力。因此，具体目标是：1)描述牛的个性维度，2)描述牛的行为反应规范，为理解不同的个体如何对环境变化做出反应提供一个结构，以及3)确定对个性和行为反应规范的理解如何解释患病牛和可能生病的牛表达的行为的个体差异。这项研究计划有可能对奶牛和牛犊的护理和管理产生深远的影响；尽管到目前为止已经进行了数十年的研究，但这两种奶牛的发病率都很高。这些发现将为未来旨在预防和治疗疾病的奶牛护理和管理方面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.**