Nuevas tecnologías para el monitoreo de pasturas

Un eficiente anejo del pastoreo no solo implica producir mas pasto sino también requiere de una alta utilización del mismo. El objetivo fue evaluar el uso de drones para la estimación precisa de la disponibilidad forrajera y su variación espacial en un sistema lechero bajo pastoreo rotativo. La experiencia tuvo lugar durante la primavera verano del 2016 en un tambo robótico (sistema de ordeñe automático) de la estacion experimental Kellogg Biological Station perteneciente a la Universidad Estatal de Michigan, Estados Unidos. El uso del indice verde (NDVI) registrado con drones mostró estimaciones de la disponibilidad de pasto del tambo altamente comparables con los estimados mediante métodos convencionales. Se concluye que el uso de drones tiene un gran potencial para la ganadería de base pastoril.Fil: Insua, Juan Ramón. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata; ArgentinaFil: Utsumi, Santiago. Michigan State University; Estados Unido

Resource heterogeneity and foraging behaviour of cattle across spatial scales

BackgroundUnderstanding the mechanisms that influence grazing selectivity in patchy environments is vital to promote sustainable production and conservation of cultivated and natural grasslands. To better understand how patch size and spatial dynamics influence selectivity in cattle, we examined grazing selectivity under 9 different treatments by offering alfalfa and fescue in patches of 3 sizes spaced with 1, 4, and 8 m between patches along an alley. We hypothesized that (1) selectivity is driven by preference for the forage species that maximizes forage intake over feeding scales ranging from single bites to patches along grazing paths, (2) that increasing patch size enhances selectivity for the preferred species, and that (3) increasing distances between patches restricts selectivity because of the aggregation of scale-specific behaviours across foraging scales.ResultsCows preferred and selected alfalfa, the species that yielded greater short-term intake rates (P < 0.0001) and greater daily intake potential. Selectivity was not affected by patch arrangement, but it was scale dependent. Selectivity tended to emerge at the scale of feeding stations and became strongly significant at the bite scale, because of differences in bite mass between plant species. Greater distance between patches resulted in longer patch residence time and faster speed of travel but lower overall intake rate, consistent with maximization of intake rate. Larger patches resulted in greater residence time and higher intake rate.ConclusionWe conclude that patch size and spacing affect components of intake rate and, to a lesser extent, the selectivity of livestock at lower hierarchies of the grazing process, particularly by enticing livestock to make more even use of the available species as patches are spaced further apart. Thus, modifications in the spatial pattern of plant patches along with reductions in the temporal and spatial allocation of grazing may offer opportunities to improve uniformity of grazing by livestock and help sustain biodiversity and stability of plant communities

Behavioral Adaptations of Nursing Brangus Cows to Virtual Fencing: Insights from a Training Deployment Phase

Virtual fencing systems have emerged as a promising technology for managing the distribution of livestock in extensive grazing environments. This study provides comprehensive documentation of the learning process involving two conditional behavioral mechanisms and the documentation of efficient, effective, and safe animal training for virtual fence applications on nursing Brangus cows. Two hypotheses were examined: (1) animals would learn to avoid restricted zones by increasing their use of containment zones within a virtual fence polygon, and (2) animals would progressively receive fewer audio-electric cues over time and increasingly rely on auditory cues for behavioral modification. Data from GPS coordinates, behavioral metrics derived from the collar data, and cueing events were analyzed to evaluate these hypotheses. The results supported hypothesis 1, revealing that virtual fence activation significantly increased the time spent in containment zones and reduced time in restricted zones compared to when the virtual fence was deactivated. Concurrently, behavioral metrics mirrored these findings, with cows adjusting their daily travel distances, exploration area, and cumulative activity counts in response to the allocation of areas with different virtual fence configurations. Hypothesis 2 was also supported by the results, with a decrease in cueing events over time and increased reliance with animals on audio cueing to avert receiving the mild electric pulse. These outcomes underscore the rapid learning capabilities of groups of nursing cows in responding to virtual fence boundaries

An online method for estimating grazing and rumination bouts using acoustic signals in grazing cattle

The growth of the world population expected for the next decade will increase the demand for products derived from cattle (i.e., milk and meat). In this sense, precision livestock farming proposes to optimize livestock production using information and communication technologies for monitoring animals. Although there are several methodologies for monitoring foraging behavior, the acoustic method has shown to be successful in previous studies. However, there is no online acoustic method for the recognition of rumination and grazing bouts that can be implemented in a low-cost device. In this study, an online algorithm called bottom-up foraging activity recognizer (BUFAR) is proposed. The method is based on the recognition of jaw movements from sound, which are then analyzed by groups to recognize rumination and grazing bouts. Two variants of the activity recognizer were explored, which were based on a multilayer perceptron (BUFAR-MLP) and a decision tree (BUFAR-DT). These variants were evaluated and compared under the same conditions with a known method for offline analysis. Compared to the former method, the proposed method showed superior results in the estimation of grazing and rumination bouts. The MLP-variant showed the best results, reaching F1-scores higher than 0.75 for both activities. In addition, the MLP-variant outperformed a commercial rumination time estimation system. A great advantage of BUFAR is the low computational cost, which is about 50 times lower than that corresponding to the former method. The good performance and low computational cost makes BUFAR a highly feasible method for real-time execution in a low-cost embedded monitoring system. The advantages provided by this system will allow the development of a portable device for online monitoring of the foraging behavior of ruminants.Fil: Chelotti, Jose Omar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Vanrell, Sebastián Rodrigo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Martínez Rau, Luciano Sebastián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Galli, Julio Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias Agrarias de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias Agrarias de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Planisich, Alejandra. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias; ArgentinaFil: Utsumi, Santiago A.. Michigan State University; Estados UnidosFil: Milone, Diego Humberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Giovanini, Leonardo Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Rufiner, Hugo Leonardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas. Instituto de Investigación en Señales, Sistemas e Inteligencia Computacional; Argentin

Algoritmo para el monitoreo acústico en tiempo real de la actividad alimenticia del ganado bovino

La evaluación tanto del comportamiento de pastoreo como de la ingesta de pasturas en rumiantes es una tarea compleja que puede ser llevada a cabo adecuadamente por medio de la detección, clasificación y medición precisa de eventos de pastoreo como: chews, bites y chewbites. Es bien conocido que el monitoreo acústico es uno de los mejores métodos para cuantificar y clasificar eventos ingestivos de la actividad alimenticia de rumiantes. Sin embargo, la mayoría de los métodos de análisis son complejos y costosos computacionalmente, además de difíciles de implementar. En este trabajo presentamos y evaluamos un novedoso sistema de análisis llamado Chew-Bite Real-Time Algorithm (CBRTA) que trabaja automáticamente en tiempo real para detectar y clasificar eventos ingestivos en vacas.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover.

Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolution of clines in defense in 47% of cities throughout the world. Variation in the strength of clines was explained by environmental changes in drought stress and vegetation cover that varied among cities. Sequencing 2074 genomes from 26 cities revealed that the evolution of urban-rural clines was best explained by adaptive evolution, but the degree of parallel adaptation varied among cities. Our results demonstrate that urbanization leads to adaptation at a global scale

Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover

Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolution of clines in defense in 47% of cities throughout the world. Variation in the strength of clines was explained by environmental changes in drought stress and vegetation cover that varied among cities. Sequencing 2074 genomes from 26 cities revealed that the evolution of urban-rural clines was best explained by adaptive evolution, but the degree of parallel adaptation varied among cities. Our results demonstrate that urbanization leads to adaptation at a global scale