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- Bálint, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Assessment of owner-directed aggressive behavioural tendencies of dogs in situations of possession and manipulation
- 2017
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Ingår i: Royal Society Open Science. - : The Royal Society. - 2054-5703. ; 4:10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Excessive aggression is a common behaviour problem in dogs that can have various destructive effects on the affected people and the implicated dog. Aggressive behaviour directed towards the owner or other family members is one of the most frequently occurring aggressive phenotypes. Here, we examine the reliability of a short questionnaire assessing aggressive behaviours by two, contextually different behavioural tests: ‘take away bone’ and ‘roll over’. Based on dogs’ behaviour in the tests, we sorted dogs (N=93) in two groups for each test, namely a less and a more disobedient/resistant group. The two principal components obtained in our questionnaire- ‘obedient’ and ‘aggressive towards owner’-showed significant differences between the behaviour groups. While dogs in the less disobedient/resistant groups had significantly higher ‘obedient’ and significantly lower ‘aggressive towards owner’ scores, dogs in the more disobedient/resistant groups had significantly higher ‘aggressive towards owner’ and significantly lower ‘obedient’ scores. Dogs’ age, sex and neuter/spay status expressed their effect through interactions. Males, young dogs and intact dogs were less ‘obedient’ than older ones, while resistant spayed/neutered dogs were more aggressive towards the owner. The questionnaire used is a safe, easy to deploy and time-efficient tool to reliably assess certain owner-directed aggressive tendencies of family dogs.
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| 2. |
- Bálint, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Dogs can sense weak thermal radiation
- 2020
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The dog rhinarium (naked and often moist skin on the nose-tip) is prominent and richly innervated, suggesting a sensory function. Compared to nose-tips of herbivorous artio- and perissodactyla, carnivoran rhinaria are considerably colder. We hypothesized that this coldness makes the dog rhinarium particularly sensitive to radiating heat. We trained three dogs to distinguish between two distant objects based on radiating heat; the neutral object was about ambient temperature, the warm object was about the same surface temperature as a furry mammal. In addition, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging on 13 awake dogs, comparing the responses to heat stimuli of about the same temperatures as in the behavioural experiment. The warm stimulus elicited increased neural response in the left somatosensory association cortex. Our results demonstrate a hitherto undiscovered sensory modality in a carnivoran species.
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| 3. |
- Garamszegi, László Zsolt, et al.
(författare)
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The role of common ancestry and gene flow in the evolution of human-directed play behaviour in dogs
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of Evolutionary Biology. - : Wiley. - 1010-061X .- 1420-9101. ; 33:3, s. 318-328
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Among-population variance of phenotypic traits is of high relevance for understanding evolutionary mechanisms that operate in relatively short timescales, but various sources of nonindependence, such as common ancestry and gene flow, can hamper the interpretations. In this comparative analysis of 138 dog breeds, we demonstrate how such confounders can independently shape the evolution of a behavioural trait (human-directed play behaviour from the Dog Mentality Assessment project). We combined information on genetic relatedness and haplotype sharing to reflect common ancestry and gene flow, respectively, and entered these into a phylogenetic mixed model to partition the among-breed variance of human-directed play behaviour while also accounting for within-breed variance. We found that 75% of the among-breed variance was explained by overall genetic relatedness among breeds, whereas 15% could be attributed to haplotype sharing that arises from gene flow. Therefore, most of the differences in human-directed play behaviour among breeds have likely been caused by constraints of common ancestry as a likely consequence of past selection regimes. On the other hand, gene flow caused by crosses among breeds has played a minor, but not negligible role. Our study serves as an example of an analytical approach that can be applied to comparative situations where the effects of shared origin and gene flow require quantification and appropriate statistical control in a within-species/among-population framework. Altogether, our results suggest that the evolutionary history of dog breeds has left remarkable signatures on the among-breed variation of a behavioural phenotype.
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| 4. |
- Kolm, Niclas, et al.
(författare)
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The link between selection for function and human-directed play behaviour in dogs
- 2020
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Ingår i: Biology Letters. - : The Royal Society. - 1744-9561 .- 1744-957X. ; 16:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Human-directed play behaviour is a distinct behavioural feature of domestic dogs. But the role that artificial selection for contemporary dog breeds has played for human-directed play behaviour remains elusive. Here, we investigate how human-directed play behaviour has evolved in relation to the selection for different functions, considering processes of shared ancestry and gene flow among the different breeds. We use the American Kennel Club (AKC) breed group categorization to reflect the major functional differences and combine this with observational data on human-directed play behaviour for over 132 breeds across 89 352 individuals from the Swedish Dog Mentality Assessment project. Our analyses demonstrate that ancestor dogs already showed intermediate levels of human-directed play behaviour, levels that are shared with several modern breed types. Herding and Sporting breeds display higher levels of human-directed play behaviour, statistically distinguishable from Non-sporting and Toy breeds. Our results suggest that human-directed play behaviour played a role in the early domestication of dogs and that subsequent artificial selection for function has been important for contemporary variation in a behavioural phenotype mediating the social bond with humans.
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| 5. |
- Persson, Mia, 1988-
(författare)
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Pawsitive selection : Genetics of dog-human communication
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Through domestication and recent selection, dogs have evolved a unique set of communicative skills to attract and redirect human attention. These social skills have not been seen to the same extent in socialised wolves and are therefore believed to have a significant genetic basis. The process of domestication and breed formation has also had effects on the structure of the dog genome that are favourable for genetic mapping. With a high amount of linkage and long haplotype blocks, fewer genetic markers are needed to find gene-trait associations in dogs than in humans. Dogs serve as an important research model for us since humans and dogs share several diseases, psychiatric disorders and behavioural traits.In Paper I, I recorded human-directed social behaviours during a two-minute unsolvable problem task in 500 laboratory beagles. The dogs were living at a breeding facility and had been bred, kept and handled under standardised conditions. Behaviours related to task solving and human-directed contact seeking were separated in a principal component analysis, indicating that the behavioural test can be used to study dog-human interaction. Narrowsense heritability (h2) of the largest principal component related to contact seeking behaviours was estimated to 0.23. This study found a significant genetic basis to the variation seen in human-directed contact seeking behaviours recorded in this population.Next, in Paper II, we collected and genotyped the DNA of 190 of the previously tested beagles with an HD Canine SNP-chip. To find genes associated with human-directed contact seeking I performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS), showing one significant and two suggestive single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers on chromosome 26. The significant SNP is located within a gene named SEZ6L, previously associated with autism in human studies. Two adjacent SNPs with suggestive association were found within a gene called ARVCF, which has been associated with schizophrenia. To our knowledge, this was the first genome-wide study to present regions within the dog genome associated with inter-species communication in dogs.However, these results could have been unique to this beagle population, so Paper III aimed to verify our previous findings in additional dog breeds. We tested 100 Labrador retrievers and 61 golden retrievers with the same unsolvable problem-task used in Paper I. Their DNA was collected and each individual was genotyped by pyrosequencing on two of the previously identified SNPs. To study the effects of recent selection, the Labrador retrievers were divided into two types. The common type is mainly bred and used for dog shows and as a pet, while the field type is mainly bred and used for hunting purposes. In this study, we found that both markers varied in both dog breeds and was significantly associated with human-directed contact-seeking behaviours. Allele frequencies differed significantly between Labrador retriever types, suggesting that these loci have been affected by recent selection. In conclusion, Paper III verifies the results found in Paper II.Finally, in Paper IV we investigated the association between dogs’ human-directed social skills and previously known SNP markers in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) region. The oxytocin system plays an important role in the formation of social bonds and may therefore also be important in the bond between dogs and humans. Here, we hypothesized that dogs receiving intranasal oxytocin respond differently to the hormone, depending on the receptor type. To investigate this, 60 golden retrievers were genotyped for SNP markers in the OXTR region and tested with the unsolvable problem task used in Paper I and III. An association was found between genotype and social behaviour in response to oxytocin administration. Dogs responded differently to oxytocin treatment, depending on OXTR genotype. In summary, this thesis contributes to the knowledge on genetic influence of interspecies communication in dogs.
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| 6. |
- Townsend, Simon William, et al.
(författare)
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Exorcising Grice's ghost : an empirical approach to studying intentional communication in animals.
- 2017
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Ingår i: Biological Reviews. - : Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Inc.. - 1464-7931 .- 1469-185X. ; 92:3, s. 1427-1433
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Language's intentional nature has been highlighted as a crucial feature distinguishing it from other communication systems. Specifically, language is often thought to depend on highly structured intentional action and mutual mindreading by a communicator and recipient. Whilst similar abilities in animals can shed light on the evolution of intentionality, they remain challenging to detect unambiguously. We revisit animal intentional communication and suggest that progress in identifying analogous capacities has been complicated by (i) the assumption that intentional (that is, voluntary) production of communicative acts requires mental-state attribution, and (ii) variation in approaches investigating communication across sensory modalities. To move forward, we argue that a framework fusing research across modalities and species is required. We structure intentional communication into a series of requirements, each of which can be operationalised, investigated empirically, and must be met for purposive, intentionally communicative acts to be demonstrated. Our unified approach helps elucidate the distribution of animal intentional communication and subsequently serves to clarify what is meant by attributions of intentional communication in animals and humans.less thanbr /greater than (© 2016 Cambridge Philosophical Society.)
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