Are cows pickier than goats? Linnaeus’s innovative large-scale feeding experiment
Bengt Å Carlsson,
Camilla Björkman,
Håkan Rydin
Abstract:In 1749, Linnaeus published Pan Svecicus, a thesis that was defended by his student Nils Hesselgren. The thesis describes food preference trials in cows, goats, sheep, horses, and pigs, and includes 2325 tests with 643 plant species. The data had surprisingly little bearing on the text in the thesis, and even though the experiments quickly became internationally known, the data were merely repeated, rather than discussed. We have digitized the data and linked the species names to modern nomenclature and presen… Show more
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