Use of a food neophobia test to characterize personality traits of dairy calves

Costa, J.H.C.; Neave, Heather W.; Weary, Daniel M.; Keyserlingk, Marina A. G. von

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-63930-8

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Indeed, to engage with something unknown, an animal first needs to overcome potential fear of approaching novelty. However, boldness and neophobia do not necessarily correlate, indicating separate behavioral traits (Boogert et al, 2006; Carter et al, 2012; Costa et al, 2020; Ward‐Fear et al, 2018). Further, in the literature, the opposite of boldness is defined as shyness (Brown et al, 2005; Wilson et al, 1994) whilst the opposite of neophobia is referred to as neophilia and defined as an attraction toward novelty or even as a preference for novelty over familiarity (Biondi et al, 2020; Day et al, 2003; Greenberg and Mettke‐Hofmann 2001; Kaulfuß and Mills 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The curious case of great ape curiosity and how it is shaped by sociality

Forss

Willems

2022

Ethology

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Although curiosity has huge implications for human creativity and learning, its evolutionary roots and function in animals remain poorly understood. Modern humans, who lack natural predators, thrive with curiosity, but our ancestors faced more hazardous environments that would not necessarily favor individual curiosity. Instead, being curious may have undergone selection in interaction with sociality. Our closest living relatives, the great apes (henceforth apes) have evolved facing conditions more like human ancestors and as such, can help us understand the functions of curiosity and its expression in non-human species. In this study, we defined curiosity as a combination of behavioral traits like neophilia, exploration diversity, and prolonged interest in exploring novelty and compared it, under similar captive environments across four ape species (N = 101): Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus, Pongo abelii, and Pongo pygmaeus. Results revealed that curiosity followed a linear gradient across the four species in accordance with their sociality. We propose the social curiosity hypothesis to explain the observed pattern, reflecting those individuals in highly social species, like bonobos and chimpanzees, regularly are accompanied by conspecifics, and thereby accustomed to an abundance of social cues, leading to inhibited curiosity when alone, compared to more solitary orangutans. As such, our study implies that ape curiosity evolved interlinked with sociality. Further, a subset of the sample (N = 46) enabled us to examine if curiosity benefits problem-solving skills, but our data did not support such link.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The curious case of great ape curiosity and how it is shaped by sociality

Forss

Willems

2022

Ethology

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“…Contrary to expectation, TMI was negatively associated with factor 3 ("active") measured in the traditional personality tests. In other studies, we observed that calves that were less active in novel environment, novel object, and novel person tests had increased consumption of novel feed (Costa et al, 2020), and that less active calves in these tests had improved feed efficiency (Neave et al, 2019). Future work should investigate how activity measured in different contexts has differing relationships with growth, feeding behavior, and nutrient utilization.…”

Section: Performance Of Dairy Calvesmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…We chose a correlational multivariate analysis approach (principal component analysis; PCA) to explore and extract common sets of behaviors across the different personality tests, following Costa et al (2020). The PCA included 9 input variables: time exploring environment, time touching, time attentive, time playing, time inactive, and latency to approach the object, person, closed umbrella and open umbrella after the startle.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and Utilization of an Isolation Box Test to Characterize Personality Traits of Dairy Calves

et al. 2022

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The use of an isolation box test (IBT) to characterize personality traits has been used in non-bovine species with success. We aimed to develop an IBT for dairy calves and determine if the behavioral responses to an IBT were associated with personality traits found from traditional tests (novel person, novel object, and a startle tests) and average daily gain (ADG; Kg/d) through weaning. Calf movement while in the IBT was measured via accelerometers attached to 5 locations on the exterior of the box. A total movement index (TMI) was calculated based on accelerometer readings during the IBT. We performed a principal component analysis on the traditional tests and identified 3 influential factors that we labeled as “fearful,” “bold,” and “active.” Calves were weighed biweekly to track liveweight ADG. Factor scores and ADG were regressed against TMI. A significant negative association was found between the TMI and the factor “active,” indicating the validity of IBT as a tool for assessing some personality traits of dairy calves. Furthermore, TMI had a positive association with ADG through the entire experimental period and thus has potential to help predict performance through weaning. IBT has potential to be used as a personality test in research scenarios. Further development is needed to produce an IBT that would be appropriate to measure animals' responses reliably in production settings. An automated test that can accommodate a wide range of ages and developing a computer learning model to interpret output from the IBT would be a possible option to do so.

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“…Other studies have also found positive associations with growth and feed intake (especially concentrate intake) in calves that were more exploratory (Neave et al, 2018(Neave et al, , 2019. Other studies found a relationship between exploration and willingness to try new feeds (Costa et al, 2014;Meagher et al, 2017;Costa et al, 2020). Willingness to try new feeds may allow animals to adjust their diet to reduce their risk of maladies and avoid satiety of a single food (Villalba et al, 2010), suggesting the value of exploration in feeding behaviors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The influence of personality and weaning method on early feeding behavior and growth of Norwegian Red calves

Whalin

Neave

Johnsen

et al. 2022

Journal of Dairy Science

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Some research has described a relationship between personality and feeding behavior at weaning in Holstein dairy calves; our objective was to determine if personality traits, especially sociability, are associated with differences in feeding behavior and growth in Norwegian Red calves. Our secondary objective was to assess the interaction between personality traits and gradual weaning method (by age or by concentrate intake) on the behavior and growth of calves. Twenty-seven Norwegian Red calves were housed in 7 groups of 3 to 5 calves, with group composition based on birthdate to ensure that there were no more than 21 d between the youngest and oldest calves. Calves had access to an automated milk and concentrate feeder with ad libitum access to concentrates, water, hay, and silage. Calves were semi-randomly assigned to be either gradually weaned by age at d 56, or weaned by intake, where weaning was initiated based on reaching specific concentrate intake targets. We measured milk intake, concentrate intake, and the number of unrewarded visits to the automated feeder during each of 5 experimental periods: preweaning (12 L/d; 10-30 d of age), weaning (milk allowance gradually reduced by method until completely weaned), weaning week (3 d before weaning and the first 7 d of 0 L/d milk allowance), postweaning (20 d after complete milk removal), and the total experimental period (10-20 d postweaning). At 21 and 80 d of age, individual behavioral responses toward novelty and isolation (indicative of personality) were recorded in 3 personality tests: novel environment, novel object, and a social motivation test (time taken to return the group). At 83 d of age, a group novel object test was conducted. Principal component analysis revealed 3 factors interpreted as personality traits (playful/exploratory, vocal/active, interactive in group test) that together explained 56% of the variance. Calves that were more playful/exploratory consumed more milk per day preweaning and more concentrate per day over the experimental period. Calves that were more vocal/active (interpreted as a type of sociability trait where vocalizations and pacing serve to communicate with conspecifics when isolated from herd) had lower preweaning milk intakes and lower concentrate intakes over the experimental period. Calves that were more interactive in the group test (interpreted as a type of sociability trait when with other herd mates) had lower preweaning and weaning concentrate intakes. There was no interaction between personality traits and weaning method on feeding behavior or performance outcomes; however, calves that were weaned by intake (successfully reached all concentrate targets) had higher average daily gains postweaning, likely due to consuming more concentrate per day over the entire experiment, than calves who failed to reach all targets, or were weaned by age. We concluded that the sociability traits of Norwegian Red calves were related to individual differences in milk and concentrate intake. Although the relationship between pers...

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Use of a food neophobia test to characterize personality traits of dairy calves

Cited by 13 publications

References 53 publications

The curious case of great ape curiosity and how it is shaped by sociality

The curious case of great ape curiosity and how it is shaped by sociality

Development and Utilization of an Isolation Box Test to Characterize Personality Traits of Dairy Calves

The influence of personality and weaning method on early feeding behavior and growth of Norwegian Red calves

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