Abstract:
Cattle are gregarious animals able to form social relationships. Dominance is one of the most widely studied social behaviors of dairy cattle, especially cows confined indoors. However, much of the past dairy cattle research has used an unstandardized approach, differing in definitions and conceptual understanding of dominance, as well as their methods of data collection and dominance calculation. The first of the 3 aims of this review is to evaluate how dominance relates to the social behavior of housed dairy cows. Cows engage in agonistic interactions to establish and reinforce dominance relationships. An individual\'s dominance is influenced by intrinsic characteristics, such as personality, and extrinsic factors, including group composition. When competing for resources, agonistic interactions can also be influenced by individual motivational differences, such as hunger, which may diminish the role of dominance in regulating competition. Our second aim is to critically review methods used to assess dominance in cows. This includes discussions on the effect of time and location of data collection on measured values as well as the viability and limitations of some dominance calculation methods. We propose that different methodologies lend themselves to different types of research questions. For example, the use of data stream-based methods that consider the sequence of interactions are useful for estimating how dominance fluctuates with changing conditions and can be used in a dynamically changing group. In contrast, matrix-based methods that aggregate social interactions may be best for identifying the social position of individuals and understanding how social characteristics influence the attributes of a stable hierarchy. Our third aim is to discuss the future of dominance research. We use a flowchart to illustrate guidelines for a more standardized approach to measuring dominance in cattle. We also identify areas in need of further conceptual clarification, suggest practical applications of dominance when managing dairy cattle, and discuss some limitations of dominance research.
摘要:
牛是能够形成社会关系的群居动物。优势是研究最为广泛的奶牛社会行为之一,尤其是被限制在室内的奶牛。然而,过去的大部分奶牛研究都使用了非标准化的方法,对主导地位的定义和概念理解不同,以及他们的数据收集和优势计算方法。这篇综述的三个目标中的第一个是评估优势与饲养奶牛的社会行为的关系。奶牛参与激烈的互动,以建立和加强优势关系。个人的优势受到内在特征的影响,比如个性,和外在因素,包括群体构成。在争夺资源时,激动互动也会受到个体动机差异的影响,比如饥饿,这可能会削弱主导地位在调节竞争中的作用。我们的第二个目标是批判性地审查用于评估奶牛优势的方法。这包括讨论数据收集的时间和地点对测量值的影响,以及一些优势计算方法的可行性和局限性。我们建议不同的方法适合不同类型的研究问题。例如,考虑交互序列的基于数据流的方法的使用对于估计优势如何随着条件的变化而波动是有用的,并且可以在动态变化的组中使用。相比之下,基于矩阵的方法,聚合社会互动可能是最好的识别个人的社会地位和理解社会特征如何影响一个稳定的层次结构的属性。我们的第三个目标是讨论优势研究的未来。我们使用流程图来说明更标准化的方法来衡量牛的优势。我们还确定了需要进一步概念澄清的领域,建议管理奶牛时优势的实际应用,并讨论了优势研究的一些局限性。