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Goats (Capra hircus) From Different Selection Lines Differ in Their Behavioural Flexibility

Given that domestication provided animals with more stable environmental conditions, artificial selection by humans has likely affected animals' ability to learn novel contingencies and their ability to adapt to changing environments. In addition, the selection for specific traits in domestic a...

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Autores principales: Nawroth, Christian, Rosenberger, Katrina, Keil, Nina M., Langbein, Jan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8844551/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35178010
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.796464
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author Nawroth, Christian
Rosenberger, Katrina
Keil, Nina M.
Langbein, Jan
author_facet Nawroth, Christian
Rosenberger, Katrina
Keil, Nina M.
Langbein, Jan
author_sort Nawroth, Christian
collection PubMed
description Given that domestication provided animals with more stable environmental conditions, artificial selection by humans has likely affected animals' ability to learn novel contingencies and their ability to adapt to changing environments. In addition, the selection for specific traits in domestic animals might have an additional impact on subjects' behavioural flexibility, but also their general learning performance, due to a re-allocation of resources towards parameters of productivity. To test whether animals bred for high productivity would experience a shift towards lower learning performance, we compared the performance of dwarf goats (not selected for production, 15 subjects) and dairy goats (selected for high milk yield, 18 subjects) in a visual discrimination learning and reversal learning task. Goats were tested individually in a test compartment and were rewarded by choosing either a white or a black cup presented by the experimenter on a sliding board behind a crate. Once they reached a designated learning criterion in the initial learning task, they were transferred to the reversal learning task. To increase the heterogeneity of our test sample, data was collected by two experimenters at two research stations following a similar protocol. Goats of both selection lines did not differ in the initial discrimination learning task in contrast to the subsequent reversal learning task. Dairy goats reached the learning criterion slower compared to dwarf goats (dairy goats = 9.18 sessions; dwarf goats = 7.74 sessions; P = 0.016). Our results may indicate that the selection for milk production might have affected behavioural flexibility in goats. These differences in adapting to changing environmental stimuli might have an impact on animal welfare e.g., when subjects have to adapt to new environments or changes in housing and management routines.
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spelling pubmed-88445512022-02-16 Goats (Capra hircus) From Different Selection Lines Differ in Their Behavioural Flexibility Nawroth, Christian Rosenberger, Katrina Keil, Nina M. Langbein, Jan Front Psychol Psychology Given that domestication provided animals with more stable environmental conditions, artificial selection by humans has likely affected animals' ability to learn novel contingencies and their ability to adapt to changing environments. In addition, the selection for specific traits in domestic animals might have an additional impact on subjects' behavioural flexibility, but also their general learning performance, due to a re-allocation of resources towards parameters of productivity. To test whether animals bred for high productivity would experience a shift towards lower learning performance, we compared the performance of dwarf goats (not selected for production, 15 subjects) and dairy goats (selected for high milk yield, 18 subjects) in a visual discrimination learning and reversal learning task. Goats were tested individually in a test compartment and were rewarded by choosing either a white or a black cup presented by the experimenter on a sliding board behind a crate. Once they reached a designated learning criterion in the initial learning task, they were transferred to the reversal learning task. To increase the heterogeneity of our test sample, data was collected by two experimenters at two research stations following a similar protocol. Goats of both selection lines did not differ in the initial discrimination learning task in contrast to the subsequent reversal learning task. Dairy goats reached the learning criterion slower compared to dwarf goats (dairy goats = 9.18 sessions; dwarf goats = 7.74 sessions; P = 0.016). Our results may indicate that the selection for milk production might have affected behavioural flexibility in goats. These differences in adapting to changing environmental stimuli might have an impact on animal welfare e.g., when subjects have to adapt to new environments or changes in housing and management routines. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-02-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8844551/ /pubmed/35178010 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.796464 Text en Copyright © 2022 Nawroth, Rosenberger, Keil and Langbein. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Nawroth, Christian
Rosenberger, Katrina
Keil, Nina M.
Langbein, Jan
Goats (Capra hircus) From Different Selection Lines Differ in Their Behavioural Flexibility
title Goats (Capra hircus) From Different Selection Lines Differ in Their Behavioural Flexibility
title_full Goats (Capra hircus) From Different Selection Lines Differ in Their Behavioural Flexibility
title_fullStr Goats (Capra hircus) From Different Selection Lines Differ in Their Behavioural Flexibility
title_full_unstemmed Goats (Capra hircus) From Different Selection Lines Differ in Their Behavioural Flexibility
title_short Goats (Capra hircus) From Different Selection Lines Differ in Their Behavioural Flexibility
title_sort goats (capra hircus) from different selection lines differ in their behavioural flexibility
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8844551/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35178010
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.796464
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