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Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Horses are highly social animals that preferably live in stable social groups and form long-term affiliative bonds. However, although their need for social interaction has not changed with domestication, domestic horses are often housed in individual stables with limited social conta...

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Autores principales: Torres Borda, Laura, Auer, Ulrike, Jenner, Florien
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10177386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37174510
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13091473
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author Torres Borda, Laura
Auer, Ulrike
Jenner, Florien
author_facet Torres Borda, Laura
Auer, Ulrike
Jenner, Florien
author_sort Torres Borda, Laura
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Horses are highly social animals that preferably live in stable social groups and form long-term affiliative bonds. However, although their need for social interaction has not changed with domestication, domestic horses are often housed in individual stables with limited social contact with other horses or in group housing with regular changes in their group composition. Thus, this review aims to provide an overview of social ethograms to facilitate the inclusion of social behaviour in equine welfare assessment. A literature review yielded 27 papers that studied equine adult social behaviour using a well-defined ethogram. Social interactions were observed in 851 horses living in groups of 9.1 (mean +/− 6.8 s.d., range: 2–33) horses. A total of 40 (mean: 12.8/paper, range: 2–23) social behaviours were described, of which 60% (24/40) were agonistic, 30% (12/40) affiliative, 7.5% (3/40) investigative and 2.5% (1/40) neutral. The 27 papers focused predominantly on socio-negative interactions by including 67.7% agonistic and only 26% affiliative, 5.1% investigative and 1.2% neutral social behaviours in their research. The strong emphasis on agonistic behaviour contrasts sharply with the rarity of agonistic behaviour in stable horse groups and the well-established importance of affiliative interactions for equine welfare. Therefore, to advance the assessment of horses’ welfare, the ethogram needs to be refined to reflect the nuanced and complex equine social behaviour better and consider more affiliative and also ambivalent and socially tolerant interactions. ABSTRACT: Sociality is an ethological need of horses that remained unchanged by domestication. Accordingly, it is essential to include horses’ social behavioural requirements and the opportunity to establish stable affiliative bonds in equine management systems and welfare assessment. Thus, this systematic review aims to provide an up-to-date analysis of equine intraspecific social ethograms. A literature review yielded 27 papers that met the inclusion criteria by studying adult (≥2 years) equine social behaviour with conspecifics using a well-defined ethogram. Social interactions were observed in 851 horses: 320 (semi-)feral free-ranging, 62 enclosed (semi-)feral and 469 domesticated, living in groups averaging 9.1 (mean +/− 6.8 s.d., range: 2–33) horses. The ethograms detailed in these 27 studies included a total of 40 (mean: 12.8/paper, range: 2–23) social behaviours, of which 60% (24/40) were agonistic, 30% (12/40) affiliative, 7.5% (3/40) investigative and 2.5% (1/40) neutral. The 27 publications included 67.7% agonistic and only 26% affiliative, 5.1% investigative and 1.2% neutral social behaviours in their methodology, thus focusing predominantly on socio-negative interactions. The strong emphasis on agonistic behaviours in equine ethology starkly contrasts with the rare occurrence of agonistic behaviours in stable horse groups and the well-established importance of affiliative interactions for equine welfare. The nuanced and complex equine social behaviour requires refinement of the ethogram with a greater focus on affiliative, ambivalent and indifferent interactions and the role of social tolerance in equine social networks to advance equine welfare assessment.
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spelling pubmed-101773862023-05-13 Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance Torres Borda, Laura Auer, Ulrike Jenner, Florien Animals (Basel) Systematic Review SIMPLE SUMMARY: Horses are highly social animals that preferably live in stable social groups and form long-term affiliative bonds. However, although their need for social interaction has not changed with domestication, domestic horses are often housed in individual stables with limited social contact with other horses or in group housing with regular changes in their group composition. Thus, this review aims to provide an overview of social ethograms to facilitate the inclusion of social behaviour in equine welfare assessment. A literature review yielded 27 papers that studied equine adult social behaviour using a well-defined ethogram. Social interactions were observed in 851 horses living in groups of 9.1 (mean +/− 6.8 s.d., range: 2–33) horses. A total of 40 (mean: 12.8/paper, range: 2–23) social behaviours were described, of which 60% (24/40) were agonistic, 30% (12/40) affiliative, 7.5% (3/40) investigative and 2.5% (1/40) neutral. The 27 papers focused predominantly on socio-negative interactions by including 67.7% agonistic and only 26% affiliative, 5.1% investigative and 1.2% neutral social behaviours in their research. The strong emphasis on agonistic behaviour contrasts sharply with the rarity of agonistic behaviour in stable horse groups and the well-established importance of affiliative interactions for equine welfare. Therefore, to advance the assessment of horses’ welfare, the ethogram needs to be refined to reflect the nuanced and complex equine social behaviour better and consider more affiliative and also ambivalent and socially tolerant interactions. ABSTRACT: Sociality is an ethological need of horses that remained unchanged by domestication. Accordingly, it is essential to include horses’ social behavioural requirements and the opportunity to establish stable affiliative bonds in equine management systems and welfare assessment. Thus, this systematic review aims to provide an up-to-date analysis of equine intraspecific social ethograms. A literature review yielded 27 papers that met the inclusion criteria by studying adult (≥2 years) equine social behaviour with conspecifics using a well-defined ethogram. Social interactions were observed in 851 horses: 320 (semi-)feral free-ranging, 62 enclosed (semi-)feral and 469 domesticated, living in groups averaging 9.1 (mean +/− 6.8 s.d., range: 2–33) horses. The ethograms detailed in these 27 studies included a total of 40 (mean: 12.8/paper, range: 2–23) social behaviours, of which 60% (24/40) were agonistic, 30% (12/40) affiliative, 7.5% (3/40) investigative and 2.5% (1/40) neutral. The 27 publications included 67.7% agonistic and only 26% affiliative, 5.1% investigative and 1.2% neutral social behaviours in their methodology, thus focusing predominantly on socio-negative interactions. The strong emphasis on agonistic behaviours in equine ethology starkly contrasts with the rare occurrence of agonistic behaviours in stable horse groups and the well-established importance of affiliative interactions for equine welfare. The nuanced and complex equine social behaviour requires refinement of the ethogram with a greater focus on affiliative, ambivalent and indifferent interactions and the role of social tolerance in equine social networks to advance equine welfare assessment. MDPI 2023-04-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10177386/ /pubmed/37174510 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13091473 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Systematic Review
Torres Borda, Laura
Auer, Ulrike
Jenner, Florien
Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance
title Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance
title_full Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance
title_fullStr Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance
title_full_unstemmed Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance
title_short Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance
title_sort equine social behaviour: love, war and tolerance
topic Systematic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10177386/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37174510
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13091473
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