118. Divergent genetic selections for social attractiveness or tolerance toward humans in sheep
Abstract
Including behavioural traits in genetic selection could be an advantageous strategy for improving adaptation and welfare of farm animals to extensive farming systems in an agroecological perspective. The aim of the present study was to investigate in sheep the efficiency of an early selection for social attractiveness or tolerance to humans. Four divergent lines were created according to the reactivity of lambs to social separation or to human presence. Lambs were individually exposed just after weaning to two behavioural tests. The arena test aims at assessing the motivation of the lambs towards conspecifics and the corridor test aims at assessing the reactivity of the lambs to an approaching shepherd. Several behaviours were measured including vocalizations and flight distance from a human used as selection criteria. After two generations of selection, the divergent selection led to highly significant line differences for social attractiveness or tolerance to humans, respectively 1.8 and 1.0 genetic standard deviation between high and low lines. Such divergent selections also affected additional behaviours expressed in the tests.
Domains
Life Sciences [q-bio]
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hazard-et-al-2023-118-divergent-genetic-selections-for-social-attractiveness-or-tolerance-toward-humans-in-sheep.pdf (303.06 Ko)
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