The intensity of physiological and behavioral responses of horses to predator vocalizations
BACKGROUND: Predatory attacks on horses can become a problem in some parts of the world, particularly when considering the recovering gray wolf populations. The issue studied was whether horses transformed by humans and placed in stable-pasture environments had retained their natural abilities to re...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7653799 2023-05-15T15:51:13+02:00 The intensity of physiological and behavioral responses of horses to predator vocalizations Janczarek, Iwona Stachurska, Anna Kędzierski, Witold Wiśniewska, Anna Ryżak, Magdalena Kozioł, Agata 2020-11-10 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7653799/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33167961 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-020-02643-6 en eng BioMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7653799/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33167961 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12917-020-02643-6 © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. CC0 PDM CC-BY BMC Vet Res Research Article Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-020-02643-6 2020-11-22T01:26:42Z BACKGROUND: Predatory attacks on horses can become a problem in some parts of the world, particularly when considering the recovering gray wolf populations. The issue studied was whether horses transformed by humans and placed in stable-pasture environments had retained their natural abilities to respond to predation risk. The objective of the study was to determine the changes in cardiac activity, cortisol concentrations, and behavior of horses in response to the vocalizations of two predators: the gray wolf (Canis lupus), which the horses of the breed studied had coevolved with but not been exposed to recently, and Arabian leopard (Panthera pardus nimr), from which the horses had been mostly isolated. In addition, we hypothesized that a higher proportion of Thoroughbred (TB) horse ancestry in the pedigree would result in higher emotional excitability in response to predator vocalizations. Nineteen horses were divided into groups of 75%, 50% and 25% TB ancestry. The auditory test conducted in a paddock comprised a 10-min prestimulus period, a 5-min stimulus period when one of the predators was heard, and a 10-min poststimulus period without any experimental stimuli. RESULTS: The increase in heart rate and saliva cortisol concentration in response to predator vocalizations indicated some level of stress in the horses. The lowered beat-to-beat intervals revealed a decrease in parasympathetic nervous system activity. The behavioral responses were less distinct than the physiological changes. The responses were more pronounced with leopard vocalizations than wolf vocalizations. CONCLUSIONS: The horses responded with weak signs of anxiety when exposed to predator vocalizations. A tendency towards a stronger internal reaction to predators in horses with a higher proportion of TB genes suggested that the response intensity was partly innate. The more pronounced response to leopard than wolf may indicate that horses are more frightened of a threatening sound from an unknown predator than one known by their ancestors. ... Text Canis lupus gray wolf PubMed Central (PMC) BMC Veterinary Research 16 1 |
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Research Article Janczarek, Iwona Stachurska, Anna Kędzierski, Witold Wiśniewska, Anna Ryżak, Magdalena Kozioł, Agata The intensity of physiological and behavioral responses of horses to predator vocalizations |
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Research Article |
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BACKGROUND: Predatory attacks on horses can become a problem in some parts of the world, particularly when considering the recovering gray wolf populations. The issue studied was whether horses transformed by humans and placed in stable-pasture environments had retained their natural abilities to respond to predation risk. The objective of the study was to determine the changes in cardiac activity, cortisol concentrations, and behavior of horses in response to the vocalizations of two predators: the gray wolf (Canis lupus), which the horses of the breed studied had coevolved with but not been exposed to recently, and Arabian leopard (Panthera pardus nimr), from which the horses had been mostly isolated. In addition, we hypothesized that a higher proportion of Thoroughbred (TB) horse ancestry in the pedigree would result in higher emotional excitability in response to predator vocalizations. Nineteen horses were divided into groups of 75%, 50% and 25% TB ancestry. The auditory test conducted in a paddock comprised a 10-min prestimulus period, a 5-min stimulus period when one of the predators was heard, and a 10-min poststimulus period without any experimental stimuli. RESULTS: The increase in heart rate and saliva cortisol concentration in response to predator vocalizations indicated some level of stress in the horses. The lowered beat-to-beat intervals revealed a decrease in parasympathetic nervous system activity. The behavioral responses were less distinct than the physiological changes. The responses were more pronounced with leopard vocalizations than wolf vocalizations. CONCLUSIONS: The horses responded with weak signs of anxiety when exposed to predator vocalizations. A tendency towards a stronger internal reaction to predators in horses with a higher proportion of TB genes suggested that the response intensity was partly innate. The more pronounced response to leopard than wolf may indicate that horses are more frightened of a threatening sound from an unknown predator than one known by their ancestors. ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Janczarek, Iwona Stachurska, Anna Kędzierski, Witold Wiśniewska, Anna Ryżak, Magdalena Kozioł, Agata |
author_facet |
Janczarek, Iwona Stachurska, Anna Kędzierski, Witold Wiśniewska, Anna Ryżak, Magdalena Kozioł, Agata |
author_sort |
Janczarek, Iwona |
title |
The intensity of physiological and behavioral responses of horses to predator vocalizations |
title_short |
The intensity of physiological and behavioral responses of horses to predator vocalizations |
title_full |
The intensity of physiological and behavioral responses of horses to predator vocalizations |
title_fullStr |
The intensity of physiological and behavioral responses of horses to predator vocalizations |
title_full_unstemmed |
The intensity of physiological and behavioral responses of horses to predator vocalizations |
title_sort |
intensity of physiological and behavioral responses of horses to predator vocalizations |
publisher |
BioMed Central |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7653799/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33167961 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-020-02643-6 |
genre |
Canis lupus gray wolf |
genre_facet |
Canis lupus gray wolf |
op_source |
BMC Vet Res |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7653799/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33167961 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12917-020-02643-6 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC0 PDM CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-020-02643-6 |
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BMC Veterinary Research |
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16 |
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1 |
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