Assessing the diversity of trade-offs between life functions in early lactation dairy cows

Ollion, Étienne; Ingrand, Stéphane; Delaby, Luc; Trommenschlager, Jean-Marie; Colette-Leurent, S.; Blanc, Fabienne

doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2015.11.016

Cited by 24 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…However, this measure provides no information about the shape of the lactation curve making it difficult to, for example, characterise the effects of nutritional plane in early lactation on subsequent persistency. From the point of view of quantifying trade-offs between, say, milk production and body reserves, we need to describe the shapes of their profiles throughout lactation (Martin and Sauvant, 2010), or at least through early lactation when the trade-off between milk production and body reserves will play on the current ability to reproduce (Ollion et al, 2016). In the context of trade-offs between life stages or of predicting long-term efficiency, it is useful if these methods can be applied across life stages.…”

Section: Managing Robustness: Measuring and Predictingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: Deciphering animal robustness. A synthesis to facilitate its use in livestock breeding and management

Friggens

Blanc

Berry

et al. 2017

Animal

Self Cite

147

145

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As the environments in which livestock are reared become more variable, animal robustness becomes an increasingly valuable attribute. Consequently, there is increasing focus on managing and breeding for it. However, robustness is a difficult phenotype to properly characterise because it is a complex trait composed of multiple components, including dynamic elements such as the rates of response to, and recovery from, environmental perturbations. In this review, the following definition of robustness is used: the ability, in the face of environmental constraints, to carry on doing the various things that the animal needs to do to favour its future ability to reproduce. The different elements of this definition are discussed to provide a clearer understanding of the components of robustness. The implications for quantifying robustness are that there is no single measure of robustness but rather that it is the combination of multiple and interacting component mechanisms whose relative value is context dependent. This context encompasses both the prevailing environment and the prevailing selection pressure. One key issue for measuring robustness is to be clear on the use to which the robustness measurements will employed. If the purpose is to identify biomarkers that may be useful for molecular phenotyping or genotyping, the measurements should focus on the physiological mechanisms underlying robustness. However, if the purpose of measuring robustness is to quantify the extent to which animals can adapt to limiting conditions then the measurements should focus on the life functions, the trade-offs between them and the animal's capacity to increase resource acquisition. The time-related aspect of robustness also has important implications. Single time-point measurements are of limited value because they do not permit measurement of responses to (and recovery from) environmental perturbations. The exception being single measurements of the accumulated consequence of a good (or bad) adaptive capacity, such as productive longevity and lifetime efficiency. In contrast, repeated measurements over time have a high potential for quantification of the animal's ability to cope with environmental challenges. Thus, we should be able to quantify differences in adaptive capacity from the data that are increasingly becoming available with the deployment of automated monitoring technology on farm. The challenge for future management and breeding will be how to combine various proxy measures to obtain reliable estimates of robustness components in large populations. A key aspect for achieving this is to define phenotypes from consideration of their biological properties and not just from available measures.

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Section: Managing Robustness: Measuring and Predictingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: Deciphering animal robustness. A synthesis to facilitate its use in livestock breeding and management

Friggens

Blanc

Berry

et al. 2017

Animal

Self Cite

147

145

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The 'portfolio effect' states that communities with higher species richness are more likely to include the species that is best adapted to any given condition in fluctuating environments so that the number of species per se has a positive effect on system resilience (Dumont et al, 2017). Within herds, diversity of individual trade-offs between functions that was quantified in dairy goats (Puillet et al, 2010) and dairy cows (Ollion et al, 2016) does not increase herd milk production but is assumed to stabilise it under fluctuating environmental conditions. Abiotic and biotic interactions, including biogeochemical cycles and trophic interactions, lend ruminant systems further resilience properties (Dumont et al, 2017).…”

Section: Historical Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Review: Make ruminants green again – how can sustainable intensification and agroecology converge for a better future?

Dumont

Groot

Tichit

2018

Animal

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Livestock farming systems provide multiple benefits to humans: protein-rich diets that contribute to food security, employment and rural economies, capital stock and draught power in many developing countries and cultural landscape all around the world. Despite these positive contributions to society, livestock is also the centre of many controversies as regards to its environmental impacts, animal welfare and health outcomes related to excessive meat consumption. Here, we review the potentials of sustainable intensification (SI) and agroecology (AE) in the design of sustainable ruminant farming systems. We analyse the two frameworks in a historical perspective and show that they are underpinned by different values and worldviews about food consumption patterns, the role of technology and our relationship with nature. Proponents of SI see the increase in animal protein demand as inevitable and therefore aim at increasing production from existing farmland to limit further encroachment into remaining natural ecosystems. Sustainable intensification can thus be seen as an efficiency-oriented framework that benefits from all forms of technological development. Proponents of AE appear more open to dietary shifts towards less animal protein consumption to rebalance the whole food system. Agroecology promotes system redesign, benefits from functional diversity and aims at providing regulating and cultural services. We analyse the main criticisms of the two frameworks: Is SI sustainable? How much can AE contribute to feeding the world? Indeed, in SI, social justice has long lacked attention notably with respect to resource allocation within and between generations. It is only recently that some of its proponents have indicated that there is room to include more diversified systems and food-system transformation perspectives and to build socially fair governance systems. As no space is available for agricultural land expansion in many areas, agroecological approaches that emphasise the importance of local production should also focus more on yield increases from agricultural land. Our view is that new technologies and strict certifications offer opportunities for scaling-up agroecological systems. We stress that the key issue for making digital science part of the agroecological transition is that it remains at a low cost and is thus accessible to smallholder farmers. We conclude that SI and AE could converge for a better future by adopting transformative approaches in the search for ecologically benign, socially fair and economically viable ruminant farming systems.Keywords: ecosystem services, efficiency, food systems, redesign, sustainability ImplicationsThere are different futures for ruminant farming systems as regards to production scenarios, climate mitigation measures and food consumption trends. Sustainable intensification (SI) and agroecology (AE) are two frameworks that aim to design more sustainable systems. Here, we analyse them in a historical perspective and discuss how they have been applied to temperate a...

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“…Past studies demonstrated numerous examples of trade-offs between the immune response and other resource-demanding activities [11,18,28,[65][66][67]. However, experimental observations do not always support such simple relationships [68][69][70].…”

Section: Effects Of the Combinations Of Stressorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade-Offs Underwater: Physiological Plasticity of Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Confronted by Multiple Stressors

Siebenthal

Rehberger

Bailey

et al. 2018

Fishes

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Organisms have evolved mechanisms to partition the available resources between fitness-relevant physiological functions. Organisms possess phenotypic plasticity to acclimate to changing environmental conditions. However, this comes at a cost that can cause negative correlations or “trade-offs”, whereby increasing investments in one function lead to decreased investments in another function. The aim of the present study was to investigate the prioritization of resource allocation between growth, pathogen defense, and contaminant response in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) exposed to changes of resource income or expenditure. We performed a multifactorial experiment with three resource-impacting stressors—limited food availability, a parasitic infection, exposure to a vitellogenesis-inducing contaminant—and combinations thereof. Treatment with the individual stressors evoked the expected responses in the respective physiological target systems—body growth, immune system, and hepatic vitellogenin transcription—but we found little evidence for significant negative relations (trade-offs) between the three systems. This also applied to fish exposed to combinations of the stressors. This high phenotypic flexibility of trout in their resource allocation suggests that linear resource allocations as mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity may be too simplistic, but it also may point to a greater capacity of ectothermic than endothermic vertebrates to maintain key physiological processes under competing resource needs due to lower maintenance costs.

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Assessing the diversity of trade-offs between life functions in early lactation dairy cows

Cited by 24 publications

References 38 publications

Review: Deciphering animal robustness. A synthesis to facilitate its use in livestock breeding and management

Review: Deciphering animal robustness. A synthesis to facilitate its use in livestock breeding and management

Review: Make ruminants green again – how can sustainable intensification and agroecology converge for a better future?

Trade-Offs Underwater: Physiological Plasticity of Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Confronted by Multiple Stressors

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