Recognition of conspecific odours by laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus) does not show context specificity.

Recognition of conspecific odours by laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus) does not show context specificity

The influence of pre-experimental experience on social discrimination in rats (Rattus norvegicus)

The authors used laboratory rats (Rattus norvegicus) of known relatedness and contrasting familiarity to assess the potential effect of preexperimental social experience on subsequent social recognition. The authors used the habituation-discrimination technique, which assumes that multiple exposures to a social stimulus (e.g., soiled bedding) ensure a subject discriminates between the habituation stimulus and a novel stimulus when both are introduced simultaneously. The authors observed a strong discrimination if the subjects had different amounts of preexperimental experience with the donors of the 2 stimuli but a weak discrimination if the subjects had either equal amounts of preexperimental experience or no experience with the stimuli. Preexperimental social experience does, therefore, appear to influence decision making in subsequent social discriminations. Implications for recognition and memory research are discussed

Academic interaction with social partners in the case from the University of Limpopo

The purpose of this article is to describe the different dimensions of the community- universityinteractions that emanated from a Community Engagement Audit which was undertaken at theUniversity of Limpopo (UL) in 2014. The Audit methodology followed a quantitative surveyresearch approach. A sample of 278, out of a population of 559 academic staff at UL that included196 with PhDs and 363 without PhDs, participated in the study. SPSS was used to compute factoranalysis. The results indicated the dominant partners that faculties interact with across the spheresof engaged scholarship were multi-national companies, small, medium and micro-enterprises,national regulatory and advisory and sectorial organisations. The types of relationship with externalsocial actors were contract research, continuing education and collaborative research anddevelopment projects. Channels of information were popular publications, public conferences,seminars or workshops, oral or written testimony or advice prominent. The outputs were new orimproved products/processes, scientific discoveries and community infrastructure and facilities.The outcomes and benefits were regional development, improved quality of life for individuals andcommunities and research focus and research projects, theoretical and methodological developmentin an academic field, academic and institutional reputation. The main constrains experienced duringengagement are lack of academic resources and institutional support and relationships with externalsocial partners. The results provide guiding parameters to improve the scale and reach of CE at theUL and a snapshot of the architecture and terrain of engaged scholarship at a rural-based HEI inSouth Africa

Can’t see the forest for the trees? Investigating attentional scope as a novel indicator of emotional state in animals

In humans, contrasting emotional states can lead to a broadening or narrowing of attentional scope. Whether this is also the case in animals has yet to be investigated. If confirmed, measurement of attentional scope has potential as a novel cognitive method of welfare assessment. In this study, we therefore aimed to investigate a test of attentional scope as a measure of emotional state in animals. We did this by inducing four putatively different emotional states in dogs (N = 10), varying in valence (positive, negative) and arousal (high, low), in two different reward contexts (food rewards in Experiment 1, social rewards in Experiment 2) and then assessing dogs' behavioural responses in a test of attentional scope. We also recorded heart rate variability (HRV) parameters as additional confirmatory affective indicators. In Experiment 1, the dogs showed a narrowing of attentional scope after the induction of both positively valenced emotional states. That dogs were in a positive state was supported by the reduced Standard Deviation of normal-to-normal R-R intervals (SDNN) and the reduced Low Frequency (LF) and Very Low Frequency (VLF) HRV. In Experiment 2, when responses to social rewards were examined, we did not detect any statistically significant differences in attentional scope between the emotional states, but dogs had a slightly narrow attentional scope in the negatively valenced emotional states. The LF tended to be reduced in the high arousal positive treatment. In conclusion, our study provides the first indication that emotional states can also alter attentional scope in animals. The results justify further investigation of this approach for use in animal welfare assessment, although additional studies are needed to refine predictions

The effect of exposure to low frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) as an integral part of the housing system on anxiety-related behaviour, cognition and welfare in two strains of laboratory mouse.

Electromagnetic field (EMF) technology has the potential to improve scientific data capture and welfare assessment by allowing automated data collection from individual cages. How- ever, it is important to determine any impact that a new technology itself may have on animal welfare, and previous studies have found contrasting results of EMF on laboratory rodent anxiety-like behaviour and cognition. We therefore investigated whether there was an effect of low frequency EMF experienced continuously over a six-week period, as an integral part of the animal housing system, on measures of mouse anxiety-related behaviour, cognition and welfare. We housed mice (N = 80) of two strains (BALB/cAnNCrl and C57BL/6NCrl) separately in Individually Ventilated Cages (IVCs) in groups of four, either with the EMF plate turned ‘on’ or ‘off’ (n = 5). Some measures, e.g. food and water utilisation, were col- lected at regular intervals, whereas measures of anxiety-like behaviour (e.g. open field test) and cognitive performance (novel-object recognition test) were collected only at the end of the study. We found expected strong strain differences in most measures, e.g. latency to leave the starting square in an open field test, with C57BL/6NCrl mice moving away sooner, and interactions between strain and time for those measures recorded at more than one time point, e.g. significant weight gain over time for both strains, but with BALB/cAnNCrl mice weighing more. However, we found no significant effects of treatment (EMF ‘on’/‘off’) for any of the measures collected. These results indicate that, for the measures recorded here, there was no measurable impact on the behaviour and welfare of low frequency EMF exposure experienced continuously over a six-week period. Housing systems that include EMF monitoring technology may therefore be suitable for use without influencing either ani- mal welfare or scientific outcomes

A novel task to assess mood congruent memory bias in non-human animals

Background: Assessing the affective state of animals is important for a range of research areas, including neuroscience. The use of cognitive judgement and attention biases to determine affective state has been demonstrated in animals, but approaches to assess mood-congruent biases in memory have yet to become established. New Method: We describe a novel methodology to investigate memory bias in animals, presenting initial data using the influence of social status to manipulate affective state. The method required laboratory rats to achieve criterion at a working-memory task in an eight-arm radial maze before probing their memory of putative negative, positive or neutral events that occurred in specific arms of the maze. They were tested 2hrs and 24hrs after experiencing each event to determine how the affective valence of the event influenced task performance. Results: Regardless of social status, rats avoided arms where they had experienced negative events and preferred arms where they had experienced positive events. However, subordinate rats made errors sooner than dominant rats in tests following exposure to the negative event. Furthermore, whilst subordinate individuals made errors earlier in tests following the negative event relative to the neutral or positive event, dominant rats made errors earlier in tests that followed the positive event. Comparison with existing method(s): Changes in performance thus appeared to reflect social status and associated affective state, confirming a new method for assessing animal affect. Conclusions: This new memory bias task could potentially be used to determine affective state in a range of non-human animal species

Unpredictable movement as an anti-predator strategy

Prey animals have evolved a wide variety of behaviours to combat the threat of predation, and these have been generally well studied. However, one of the most common and taxonomically widespread antipredator behaviours of all has, remarkably, received almost no experimental attention: so-called ‘protean’ behaviour. This is behaviour which is sufficiently unpredictable to prevent a predator anticipating in detail the future position or actions of its prey. In this study, we used human ‘predators’ participating in 3D virtual reality simulations to test how protean (i.e. unpredictable) variation in prey movement affects participants’ ability to visually target them as they move (a key determinant of successful predation). We found that targeting accuracy was significantly predicted by prey movement path complexity, although, surprisingly, there was little evidence that high levels of unpredictability in the underlying movement rules equated directly to decreased predator performance. Instead, the specific movement rules differed in how they impacted on targeting accuracy, with the efficacy of protean variation in one element depending on the values of the remaining elements. These findings provide important insights into the understudied phenomenon of protean antipredator behaviour, which are directly applicable to predator-prey dynamics within a broad range of taxa

How to Handle Your Dragon: Does Handling Duration Affect the Behaviour of Bearded Dragons (Pogona Vitticeps)?

Reptiles are popular as pets and it is, therefore, important to understand how different aspects of housing and husbandry impact on their behaviour and welfare. One potential cause of stress in captive reptiles is interaction with humans; in particular, the effect of handling. However, little research on handling has been carried out with reptiles, particularly relating to the type of gentle handling likely to be experienced by pet animals. The aim of this study was therefore to determine whether the amount of time that bearded dragons (Pogona vitticeps), a commonly kept pet species, experienced gentle handling induced no or differing levels of anxiety, as reflected in their subsequent behavioural response to novelty. We found that there appeared to be a mildly aversive effect of handling time on subsequent behavioural response to novelty. Longer durations of handling (5 min or 15 min) appeared to increase anxiety-related behaviour, with handled animals showing more frequent tongue flicking behaviour when they experienced a novel environment and reduced time spent in close proximity to a novel object. These results suggest that handling bearded dragons, even in a gentle way, may increase their anxiety. However, it is not yet known whether animals may habituate to handling for longer periods if provided with additional experience

Changes in group behaviour in response to a preferred environment reflect positive affect

When observed in their preferred environments, animals display behavioural changes, such as an increase in resting or a reduction in agonism, suggestive of positive affect and improved welfare. However, most studies focus on the behaviour of individuals or, at most, pairs of animals; even though in group-living animals beneficial environmental changes may impact on how the group behaves as a whole. In this study, we investigated whether experiencing a preferred visual environment affected the shoaling behaviour of zebrafish (Danio rerio) groups. We first confirmed a group preference for an image of gravel placed underneath the base of a tank compared to a plain white image. Second, we observed replicated groups either with or without the preferred (gravel) image present to determine if a visually enriched and preferred environment could elicit changes in shoaling behaviour. We found a significant interaction between the observation time and test condition, with differences in shoaling behaviour reflective of increased relaxation emerging gradually over time in the gravel condition. The findings of this study reveal that experiencing a preferred environment can alter group behaviour, making such holistic changes valuable as potential indicators of positive welfare

The impact of water pH on association preferences in fish

Acidification of lakes and rivers, as a consequence of anthropogenic interference, can cause fundamental changes to biological and ecological processes. One of the main consequences of a reduction in water pH for aquatic organisms is the disruption of their chemosensory abilities, as the detection of chemical cues underpins a wide range of decision-making processes; for example, a reduction to low pH has been shown to interfere with predator avoidance and the detection of foraging cues. Moreover, aquatic organisms are known to make widespread use of chemical information to inform their social behaviour, although we have a comparably poor understanding of how this is impacted by water acidification, especially their shoaling behaviour. Using a standard behavioural assay, we therefore investigated the impact of low water pH on the social interactions mediated by diet-derived chemical cues in three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus), by quantifying social behaviour in water that varied either experimentally or naturally in pH. In both cases we predicted that association patterns would be disrupted by low pH conditions, as reduced pH has shown to interfere with the perception of chemical cues in other non-social contexts. Consistent with this prediction, our results demonstrate that an acute, short-term reduction in water pH caused a breakdown in the diet-mediated social interaction patterns seen in more alkaline water, although, interestingly, the pattern of associations for fish tested in naturally acidic water was both more complex and in a direction that was precisely contrary to our predictions. Overall the findings provide insights into the potential effects of an acute reduction in water pH on fish communication and social interaction patterns, which may have implication for various individual, group, population and community-level processes