Promoting contest skill to reduce the welfare costs of animal agonistic interactions
Lead Research Organisation:
Plymouth University
Department Name: Sch of Biological and Marine Sciences
Abstract
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Technical Summary
Technical summary
Aggression reduces managed animal welfare and wild animal fitness. Individuals differ greatly in their ability to rapidly resolve aggressive contests with minimal costs, the causes of which are poorly understood, limiting our ability to reduce negative welfare impacts. Contest skill is hypothesised to affect contest costs and success but this is almost completely untested. A recent framework predicts that skill requires efficient, accurate, precise and appropriate behaviour. We test this using pigs to characterise skill by the effect of its putative components on contest costs and outcome (Obj.1). Obj.2 examines the effect of early social experience on skill development. We impose commercially feasible interventions (early contest experience; early socialisation to enhance play) and predict that they promote skill in later contests. Obj.3 studies the role of socio-cognitive ability and assessment strategy in skill. Assessment strategies consist of two broad types: In self assessment models each contestant appraises its own fighting ability (resource holding potential; RHP) but not that of the opponent. In mutual assessment models individuals compare opponent RHP against their own, markedly reducing contest costs. Obj.3 predicts that cognitive ability and greater use of mutual assessment enhance the appropriateness aspect of skill. This employs the first test of a recent theory proposing the existence of individual variation in assessment strategies. Obj.4 explores how an aggressive personality and conventional measures of RHP (e.g. weight) impair or enhance skill. Importantly, Obj.5 studies how skill in dyadic contests translates to commercially relevant group mixing in which many unfamiliar individuals meet simultaneously. We predict that dyadic contest skill minimises welfare costs in this scenario and, by promoting contest skill by the early life manipulations of Obj.2, the welfare costs of aggression in commercial production can be reduced.
Aggression reduces managed animal welfare and wild animal fitness. Individuals differ greatly in their ability to rapidly resolve aggressive contests with minimal costs, the causes of which are poorly understood, limiting our ability to reduce negative welfare impacts. Contest skill is hypothesised to affect contest costs and success but this is almost completely untested. A recent framework predicts that skill requires efficient, accurate, precise and appropriate behaviour. We test this using pigs to characterise skill by the effect of its putative components on contest costs and outcome (Obj.1). Obj.2 examines the effect of early social experience on skill development. We impose commercially feasible interventions (early contest experience; early socialisation to enhance play) and predict that they promote skill in later contests. Obj.3 studies the role of socio-cognitive ability and assessment strategy in skill. Assessment strategies consist of two broad types: In self assessment models each contestant appraises its own fighting ability (resource holding potential; RHP) but not that of the opponent. In mutual assessment models individuals compare opponent RHP against their own, markedly reducing contest costs. Obj.3 predicts that cognitive ability and greater use of mutual assessment enhance the appropriateness aspect of skill. This employs the first test of a recent theory proposing the existence of individual variation in assessment strategies. Obj.4 explores how an aggressive personality and conventional measures of RHP (e.g. weight) impair or enhance skill. Importantly, Obj.5 studies how skill in dyadic contests translates to commercially relevant group mixing in which many unfamiliar individuals meet simultaneously. We predict that dyadic contest skill minimises welfare costs in this scenario and, by promoting contest skill by the early life manipulations of Obj.2, the welfare costs of aggression in commercial production can be reduced.
Organisations
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ORCID iD |
| Mark Briffa (Principal Investigator) |