Abstract
BackgroundSince the recommendations on group housing of mink (Neovison vison) were adopted by the Council of Europe in 1999, it has become common in mink production in Europe. Group housing is advantageous from a production perspective, but can lead to aggression between animals and thus raises a welfare issue. Bite marks on the animals are an indicator of this aggressive behaviour and thus selection against frequency of bite marks should reduce aggression and improve animal welfare. Bite marks on one individual reflect the aggression of its group members, which means that the number of bite marks carried by one individual depends on the behaviour of other individuals and that it may have a genetic basis. Thus, for a successful breeding strategy it could be crucial to consider both direct (DGE) and indirect (IGE) genetic effects on this trait. However, to date no study has investigated the genetic basis of bite marks in mink.Result and discussionA model that included DGE and IGE fitted the data significantly better than a model with DGE only, and IGE contributed a substantial proportion of the heritable variation available for response to selection. In the model with IGE, the total heritable variation expressed as the proportion of phenotypic variance (T2) was six times greater than classical heritability (h2). For instance, for total bite marks, T2 was equal to 0.61, while h2 was equal to 0.10. The genetic correlation between direct and indirect effects ranged from 0.55 for neck bite marks to 0.99 for tail bite marks. This positive correlation suggests that mink have a tendency to fight in a reciprocal way (giving and receiving bites) and thus, a genotype that confers a tendency to bite other individuals can also cause its bearer to receive more bites.ConclusionBoth direct and indirect genetic effects contribute to variation in number of bite marks in group-housed mink. Thus, a genetic selection design that includes both direct genetic and indirect genetic effects could reduce the frequency of bite marks and probably aggression behaviour in group-housed mink.
Highlights
Introduction to Quantitative GeneticsNew York: Ronald Press; 1960. 24
Both direct and indirect genetic effects contribute to variation in number of bite marks in group-housed mink
A genetic selection design that includes both direct genetic and indirect genetic effects could reduce the frequency of bite marks and probably aggression behaviour in group-housed mink
Summary
Introduction to Quantitative GeneticsNew York: Ronald Press; 1960. 24. Wade MJ: Group selection among laboratory populations of Tribolium.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1976, 73:4604–4607. 25. Group housing is advantageous from a production perspective, but can lead to aggression between animals and raises a welfare issue. Social interactions among individuals are common both in plants and animals [1] and can have significant effects on production and welfare traits. Social interactions can affect feed intake and growth rate in domestic pigs [2,3], lead to mortality due to cannibalism in laying hens [4], result in aggression and tail biting if mixing is carried out in pigs [5], increase competition in fish [6], affect growth rate and disease traits in forestry [7,8,9], and result in bite marks in mink [10,11,12,13]. Social interactions are a key factor when designing artificial breeding programmes in domestic animals for which group housing is common practise [16]
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