What smells? Gauging attention to olfaction in canine cognition research.

One of the challenges of animal cognition research is overcoming anthropocentric sensory biases-in particular, favoring visual information and cues despite the dominance of other sensory cues in many nonhuman research subjects. As such, it is particularly important for animal cognition researchers to explicitly mention steps taken to control for and attend to the sensory world of their study species. Dogs are well known for their reliance on olfaction, but the extent to which dog cognition and behavior research accounts for olfactory cues or incorporates olfactory controls is unknown. With this bibliographic study, we reviewed canine research published in the past 10 years (2008-2018) in 13 scientific journals and coded the 481 resulting papers for mentions of olfactory or odor cues or controls. Our findings indicate that despite widespread acceptance of the significance of olfaction to dogs, scientific methodology rarely takes olfactory information processing into account. Finally, we propose a simple rubric of recommended reporting of olfactory information in research contexts, with the aims to help attune researchers to the umwelt of their study subjects, and to enhance the methodological reproducibility of canine cognition research.

Sex-specific epigenetic disruption and behavioral changes following low-dose in utero bisphenol A exposure.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an estrogenic endocrine disruptor widely used in the production of plastics. Increasing evidence indicates that in utero BPA exposure affects sexual differentiation and behavior; however, the mechanisms underlying these effects are unknown. We hypothesized that BPA may disrupt epigenetic programming of gene expression in the brain. Here, we provide evidence that maternal exposure during pregnancy to environmentally relevant doses of BPA (2, 20, and 200 µg/kg/d) in mice induces sex-specific, dose-dependent (linear and curvilinear), and brain region-specific changes in expression of genes encoding estrogen receptors (ERs; ERα and ERß) and estrogen-related receptor-γ in juvenile offspring. Concomitantly, BPA altered mRNA levels of epigenetic regulators DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) 1 and DNMT3A in the juvenile cortex and hypothalamus, paralleling changes in estrogen-related receptors. Importantly, changes in ERα and DNMT expression in the cortex (males) and hypothalamus (females) were associated with DNA methylation changes in the ERα gene. BPA exposure induced persistent, largely sex-specific effects on social and anxiety-like behavior, leading to disruption of sexually dimorphic behaviors. Although postnatal maternal care was altered in mothers treated with BPA during pregnancy, the effects of in utero BPA were not found to be mediated by maternal care. However, our data suggest that increased maternal care may partially attenuate the effects of in utero BPA on DNA methylation. Overall, we demonstrate that low-dose prenatal BPA exposure induces lasting epigenetic disruption in the brain that possibly underlie enduring effects of BPA on brain function and behavior, especially regarding sexually dimorphic phenotypes.

Paternal social enrichment effects on maternal behavior and offspring growth.

Paternal environmental experiences are significant predictors of developmental outcomes in offspring and can occur even in the absence of paternal care. Although there has been a recent focus on the role of environmentally induced changes in the male germline in producing these effects, the potential mediating role of mothers has not been investigated. A role for mothers in the transmission of paternal effects has been well acknowledged in behavioral ecology, which predicts that females will dynamically adjust their reproductive investment in response to the qualities of their mate. In the present study, we show that a lifetime of socially enriched compared with impoverished housing conditions shifts anxiety-like behavior and gene expression of male mice. Females that mate with enriched-reared males exhibit increased levels of pup nursing and licking toward their offspring, which are associated with changes in gene expression within the maternal hypothalamus. Significantly, these changes in maternal behavior are correlated with the general levels of anxiety exhibited by their male mates. Further, we show that paternal environmental enrichment results in increased growth of their offspring. These results suggest that maternal-paternal interactions at mating may guide offspring development, with significant implications for the transgenerational transmission of paternal environmental experiences.

Vulnerable fishes, inattentive humans.

A comprehensive analysis of 2048 species of reef fishes reveals the shortcomings of human interest: The most at-risk species generally receive the least attention.

Expressed Likelihood as Motivator: Creating Value through Engaging What's Real.

Our research tested two predictions regarding how likelihood can have motivational effects as a function of how a probability is expressed. We predicted that describing the probability of a future event that could be either A or B using the language of high likelihood ("80% A") rather than low likelihood ("20% B"), i.e., high rather than low expressed likelihood, would make a present activity more real and engaging, as long as the future event had properties relevant to the present activity. We also predicted that strengthening engagement from the high (vs. low) expressed likelihood of a future event would intensify the value of present positive and negative objects (in opposite directions). Both predictions were supported. There was also evidence that this intensification effect from expressed likelihood was independent of the actual probability or valence of the future event. What mattered was whether high versus low likelihood language was used to describe the future event.

Predicting how individuals approach enrichment: regulatory focus in cotton-top tamarins (Sanguinus oedipus).

Evidence is mounting that personality is associated with health and well-being in humans and other animals. In a step towards increasing our understanding of this link, we applied regulatory focus theory, a motivational perspective from social psychology, to the behavior of zoo-housed cotton top tamarins. We tested whether regulatory focus "personality," that is stable differences in whether an individual is motivated by gains versus safety, would 1) produce individual differences in behavior and 2) predict how individuals interact with enrichment. First, we characterized individuals with respect to several key behaviors: eating in the open, hiding, and time spent near the front of the exhibit. The monkeys were consistent in their behavioral tendencies across the 6-month study, allowing regulatory focus classification. One monkey showed evidence of being a promotion-individual, that is, more motivated by gains than safety. One monkey showed evidence of being a prevention-individual, that is, more motivated by safety than gains. The other monkeys were stable in their behavior and showed evidence of being intermediate-individuals, that is, they favored neither gains nor safety. Using these characterizations, we predicted distinct patterns of individual-object interactions with enrichment. For example, we predicted that a promotion-individual (favoring gains over safety) would approach potential gains faster than a prevention-individual (favoring safety over gains). Counter-intuitively, however, we also predicted that a promotion-individual would approach non-gains slower than a prevention-individual concerned with safety. We found support for our predictions, which suggests that regulatory focus theory could be a useful tool for understanding how and why individuals interact with environmental enrichment.

Evidence that self-regulatory mode affects retirement savings.

We examine how self-regulatory motivations of locomotion (initiation) and assessment (evaluation) are related to retirement wealth in middle-aged and older Americans. We test a hypothesis that high locomotion and some assessment levels predict high wealth levels. We use two national data sets: the 2008 Health and Retirement Study (N = 6,464) and the 2005 Midlife in the United States (N = 4,963). We found that a combination of high locomotion and moderate assessment motivation can maximize wealth accumulation. By creating this combination of locomotion and assessment motivations, policy interventions can be more effective in motivating wealth accumulation for retirement, such as a required annual review of retirement savings plans and understandable disclosure of the plans' costs.

The 'sustainability gap' of US broiler chicken production: trade-offs between welfare, land use and consumption.

In 2018, over nine billion chickens were slaughtered in the United States. As the demand for chickens increases, so too have concerns regarding the welfare of the chickens in these systems and the damage such practices cause to the surrounding ecosystems. To address welfare concerns, there is large-scale interest in raising chickens on pasture and switching to slower-growing, higher-welfare breeds as soon as 2024. We created a box model of US chicken demographics to characterize aggregate broiler chicken welfare and land-use consequences at the country scale for US shifts to slower-growing chickens, housing with outdoor access, and pasture management. The US produces roughly 20 million metric tons of chicken meat annually. Maintaining this level of consumption entirely with a slower-growing breed would require a 44.6%-86.8% larger population of chickens and a 19.2%-27.2% higher annual slaughter rate, relative to the current demographics of primarily 'Ross 308' chickens that are slaughtered at a rate of 9.25 billion per year. Generating this quantity of slower-growing breeds in conventional concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) would require 90 582-98 687 km2, an increase of 19.9-30.6% over the 75 577 km2 of land used for current production of Ross 308. Housing slower-growing breeds on pasture, the more individually welfare-friendly option, would require 108 642-121 019 km2, a 43.8-60.1% increase over current land use. Allowing slower-growing breeds occasional outdoor access is an intermediate approach that would require 90 691-98 811 km2, an increase of 20-30.7% of the current land use, a very minor increase of land relative to managing slower-growing breeds in CAFOs. In sum, without a drastic reduction in consumption, switching to alternative breeds will lead to a substantial increase in the number of individuals killed each year, an untenable increase in land use, and a possible decrease in aggregate chicken welfare at the country-level scale. Pasture-based management requires substantial additional land use. These results demonstrate constraints and trade-offs in animal welfare, environmental conservation and food animal consumption, while highlighting opportunities for policies to mitigate impacts in an integrated manner using a One Health approach.

Curiosity in zebrafish (Danio rerio)? Behavioral responses to 30 novel objects.

Curiosity-the motivation to seek out information-has been studied widely across the animal kingdom. To investigate curiosity in zebrafish we presented 30 novel objects to groups of zebrafish housed in semi-naturalistic tanks (6 tanks; 10 fish/tank; 10-min presentations). During the first 100 s and final 100 s of each object's 10-min presentation period, we recorded each group's: (i) latency to approach the object, (ii) attraction to the object, (iii) social dynamics: agonistic behavior and group cohesion and coordination, and (iv) diving behavior, a stress response in zebrafish. Comparing these behaviors to a 100 s baseline period when no object was present, we tested for neophobia (avoidance of novelty), neophilia (overall attraction to novelty), sustained interest (prolonged attraction to at least some presentations), discriminant interest (certain objects eliciting more attention than others), habituation (loss of interest over time), and alterations to social and stress behaviors. Zebrafish groups readily approached all objects (1 s median latency), were neophilic throughout all object presentations, and showed systematic sustained interest only for some object presentations at the beginning of the study (object presentations 1-10). Over the course of the study, zebrafish also showed signs of habituation such that by the final ten object presentations (21-30), there were no signs of overall sustained interest. During the beginning of the study (object presentations 1-10), we also found evidence for specific object-driven interest, with object ID accounting for 11% of the variability in interest scores (p < 0.01), and object-driven interest corresponding to alterations in social behavior: decreased aggression (p < 0.02), increased group cohesion (p < 0.02), and increased group coordination (p < 0.05). By explicitly investigating curiosity in fish, this work reveals that under certain conditions, zebrafish voluntarily engage in cognitive stimulation opportunities. More work is needed to clarify what types of information zebrafish find most rewarding and how long-term exposure to such opportunities may affect fish welfare.

Poor Welfare Indicators and Husbandry Practices at Lion (Panthera Leo) "Cub-Petting" Facilities: Evidence from Public YouTube Videos.

There is growing concern about captive lion hunting and breeding operations in South Africa, including cub-petting tourism. For the first time, we assess the quality of cub-petting facilities and code the stress behaviors of lion cubs when handled by tourists by analyzing four stress-related behaviors and six indicators of poor husbandry in 49 YouTube videos of tourist−lion cub interactions (from at least 11 South African safari parks, 2008-2019). We also categorized videos as regular tourism vs. voluntourism (tourism under the guise of helping those in need). We found a median of four poor husbandry practices per video, with all but two videos involving very young cubs (under 7 months) and the majority (61%) involving cubs estimated under 3 months old. Two videos claimed to show cubs as young as 9 days old and 1 day old, with their eyes still closed. The lion mother was apparent in only 1 of 49 videos. All but one of the interactions took place during the day, although young cubs are primarily active at night. The majority of videos (77%) showed cubs engaging in at least one stress behavior, and the most common stress behaviors were avoidance and aggression. Comparing voluntourism to regular tourism, we found no difference in instances of poor husbandry or observable stress behaviors (p's > 0.6). These results show that cub-petting operations are characterized by poor cub welfare, including features that are inherently harmful to cub development (e.g., separation from the mother at an early age and forced activity outside normal waking hours). Existing research suggests that many tourists are likely unaware of these negative impacts and may even believe that they are helping the cubs. This analysis provides evidence to the contrary.

Koi (Cyprinus rubrofuscus) Seek Out Tactile Interaction with Humans: General Patterns and Individual Differences.

The study of human-animal interactions has provided insights into the welfare of many species. To date, however, research has largely focused on human relationships with captive mammals, with relatively little exploration of interactions between humans and other vertebrates, despite non-mammals constituting the vast majority of animals currently living under human management. With this study, we aimed to address this gap in knowledge by investigating human-fish interactions at a community garden/aquaponics learning-center that is home to approximately 150 goldfish (Carassius auratus) and seven adult and two juvenile koi (Cyprinus rubrofuscus). After a habituation period (July-September 2019) during which time the fish were regularly provided with the opportunity to engage with the researcher's submerged hand, but were not forced to interact with the researcher, we collected video data on 10 non-consecutive study days during the month of October. This procedure produced 18~20-min interaction sessions, 10 during T1 (when the experimenter first arrived and the fish had not been fed) and eight during T2 (20-30 min after the fish had been fed to satiation; two sessions of which were lost due equipment malfunction). Interactions between the researcher and the seven adult koi were coded from video based on location (within reach, on the periphery, or out of reach from the researcher) and instances of physical, tactile interaction. Analyses revealed that overall, koi spent more time than expected within reach of the researcher during both T1 (p < 0.02) and T2 (p < 0.03). There were also substantial differences between individuals' overall propensity for being within-reach and engaging in physical interaction. These results show that koi will voluntarily interact with humans and that individual koi display unique and consistent patterns of interaction. By providing quantitative data to support anecdotal claims that such relationships exist around the world, this research contributes to the ongoing discoveries highlighting the profound dissonance between how humans think about and treat fish and who fish actually are, thereby emphasizing the necessity of stronger moral and legal protections for fishes.

Animal welfare risks of global aquaculture.

The unprecedented growth of aquaculture involves well-documented environmental and public-health costs, but less is understood about global animal welfare risks. Integrating data from multiple sources, we estimated the taxonomic diversity of farmed aquatic animals, the number of individuals killed annually, and the species-specific welfare knowledge (absence of which indicates extreme risk). In 2018, FAO reported 82.12 million metric tons of farmed aquatic animals from six phyla and at least 408 species-20 times the number of species of farmed terrestrial animals. The farmed aquatic animal tonnage represents 250 to 408 billion individuals, of which 59 to 129 billion are vertebrates (e.g., carps, salmonids). Specialized welfare information was available for 84 species, only 30% of individuals; the remaining 70% either had no welfare publications or were of an unknown species. With aquaculture growth outpacing welfare knowledge, immediate efforts are needed to safeguard the welfare of high-production, understudied species and to create policies that minimize welfare risks.

The influence of feeding, enrichment, and seasonal context on the behavior of Pacific Walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens).

Though some research exists concerning general behavior and activity patterns of Walruses in zoos or aquariums, less is known about how these patterns change in response to various environmental and temporal contexts. This study presents two studies assessing behavioral changes in relation to feeding period, object enrichment (OE), and season in a social group of four Pacific Walruses at the New York Aquarium. Study 1 examined behavior in relation to feeding context (nonfeed, prefeed, postfeed); data were collected over a three-week period, resulting in 47 observation sessions for each feeding context. Study 2 examined behavior in relation to OE and season; data were collected in two phases resulting in 12 enrichment and 9 no-enrichment (NE) observation sessions (Phase 1), and 21 enrichment and 18 NE observation sessions (Phase 2). Study 1 showed that after feeding, oral behavior increased while social behavior and total swim frequency decreased. In Study 2, both swim frequency and social behavior were found to interact with OE and phase, while oral behavior remained constant across all conditions. As in the wild, both studies found all animals to be swimming the majority of the time. Though every animal spent much of its swim time engaged in an Individual Swimming Pattern (ISP), both studies showed that the proportion of ISP (in relation to total time swimming) remained stable across all contexts, suggesting a potential functional role of the ISPs. These results are discussed in light of the ongoing debate over the role of stereotypies in welfare assessment.

Investigating the welfare and conservation implications of alligator wrestling for American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis).

Wildlife tourism attractions (WTA) are popular in the United States, but they may be harmful to the individual animals involved and we question whether they provide benefits to environmental conservation. Most research on the welfare and environmental implications of WTAs focuses on charismatic mammals, with few studies investigating these issues for reptiles. Here we examine alligator wrestling, including its impact on animal welfare and environmental conservation. Using a sample of 94 relevant YouTube videos of alligator wrestling in Florida representing 16 different venues, we coded the environmental and behavioral characteristics evident in each video. We then performed a content analysis of wrestlers' narration in a subset of 51 videos to analyze the environmental awareness and educational components of alligator wrestling. Our results show systemic welfare harm: 11 venues housed adult alligators together with conspecifics, 96% of alligator wrestling performances facilitated direct contact in the form of physical restraint by one or more human wrestlers, and as many as 96% of the videos did not show a suitable water or waterside features for captive alligators. Furthermore, 12% of performances showed wrestlers flipping alligators onto their backs while 16% showed wrestlers tying alligators' jaws shut, both of which are known to be acute stressors. Finally, just under half of alligator wrestling commentary (49%) addressed environmental conservation topics, and much of this commentary included contradictory or misleading information that is not likely to benefit alligators in the wild. We argue that alligator wrestling serves no role in promoting positive relationships between humans, animals, and the environment, and instead furthers traditional notions of dominion that undermine welfare and conservation aims.

From Land to Water: Taking Fish Welfare Seriously.

This article aims to use contemporary (terrestrial) animal welfare science as a lens to evaluate the state of knowledge concerning welfare in fish species, focusing on farmed fishes. We take advantage of the vast expertise-including previous pitfalls and accomplishments-in the investigation of welfare in terrestrial vertebrates, borrowing questions and methodologies from terrestrial animal welfare science in order to (1) better understand the challenges and opportunities in the study of welfare in fish species, and (2) propose strategies for filling knowledge gaps.

Social Environment and Individual Differences in Feeding Behavior Are Associated with Risk of Endometritis in Dairy Cows.

Our aim was to determine whether individual differences in feeding and social behavior in different social environments affect health outcomes in dairy cows. We used eight groups of four animals per treatment assigned to either a 'predictable' or an 'unpredictable' and competitive social environment. Predictable cows were given free access to six feed bins with no change in feed delivery times; whereas, the unpredictable cows were required to share one feed bin with one resident cow and morning feed was delayed 0, 1, 2, or 3 h every other day. On alternate days, the unpredictable cows were also re-assigned to a new bin and a new resident partner. Low daily dry matter intake (DMI) was a risk factor for cytological endometritis in predictable cows (odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval): 0.17 (0.02, 0.53)), but low daily DMI was protective for unpredictable cows (OR: 1.93 (1.09, 4.14)). Although low rate of DMI (kg/min) was a risk factor for cytological endometritis for predictable cows (OR: 4.2 × 10-101 (8.6 × 10-206, 4.8 × 10-30)) it was unrelated to disease for unpredictable cows. There were no associations between feed bin visits or percentage of non-nutritive visits with the likelihood of cytological endometritis. This is the first evidence that individual differences in feeding behavior influence cytological endometritis risk in dairy cows, but the direction and magnitude of these effects is dependent on the social environment.

Standard laboratory housing for mice restricts their ability to segregate space into clean and dirty areas.

Laboratory mice (Mus musculus) are typically housed in simple cages consisting of one open space. These standard cages may thwart mouse ability to segregate resting areas from areas where they eliminate, a behaviour that is prevalent across the animal kingdom. No scientific work has directly tested whether mice engage in such segregation behaviour, or whether the ability to do so may have welfare consequences. Here we show that mice, whether housed in standard cages or a complex housing system consisting of three interconnected standard cages, kept nesting and elimination sites highly segregated, with nest and urine co-occurring in the same location only 2% of the time. However, mice in the complex system established these clean and dirty sites in separate cages instead of separate locations within one cage, and carried bedding materials (cellulose pellets) from their nesting cages to their latrine cage. Moreover, mice in the complex system displayed more behaviours associated with positive welfare and were less disturbed by weekly husbandry procedures. We conclude that mice find waste products aversive, and that housing mice in a way that facilitates spatial segregation provides a simple way of allowing the expression of natural behaviours and improving welfare.

Factors influencing public support for dairy tie stall housing in the U.S.

A number of studies have shown widespread public concern over housing animals in ways that restrict their ability to move freely. Dairy cows housed in tie stall barns are tethered continuously or for part of the day, but no study has assessed public support for this type of housing system. We report two experiments assessing public perceptions of tie stall housing for dairy cattle using a hypothetical referenda format. In Experiment 1, 65% of participants (n = 430) said they would support a ban on tie stalls. The probability of supporting a ban increased as the duration of time that cows were tethered increased. In Experiment 2, information about possible economic consequences was included. Relatively fewer (55%) participants (n = 372) indicated they would support a ban. Supporters of a ban were willing to pay an average dairy product price premium of 68% to see the ban enacted. Indirect measures of support indicated socially desirable responding was greater in Experiment 2 where the economic impacts of voting behavior were made explicit. In both studies, women and liberals were more likely to support a ban. The majority of participants in Experiment 1 (51%) and Experiment 2 (57%) said they had never heard or read anything about tie stalls before participating in our survey. We conclude that current knowledge of the use of tie stalls is low, but if this situation were to change there may be considerable public concern about the use of this housing method.