Equine health and quality of life research project

Horse owners and caretakers are being invited to participate in a new research project designed
to improve equine health and wellbeing. The project focuses on developing a questionnaire to measure health-related quality of life (HRQL) in horses.

 

Zoetis, in collaboration with VetMetrica, is leading this initiative. The work builds on many years of pain research carried out at the University of Glasgow, where similar HRQL instruments have already been successfully developed for dogs and cats. These tools are now licensed for use by veterinary surgeons in clinical practice and trials, enabling them to monitor how animals are feeling and assess the effects of health conditions on quality of life. Following the success of these tools for dogs and cats, the same approach is now being extended to horses.

 

The researchers explain that their primary focus is on chronic conditions, such as arthritis or chronic laminitis, which are long-term health problems that may persist continuously or flare up periodically. This differs from acute conditions, such as colic or injury, which tend to arise suddenly but are usually short-lived. By concentrating on chronic conditions, the study aims to capture the ongoing impact of these issues on horses’ daily lives and wellbeing.

 

As part of the project, the research team has compiled a list of words and phrases commonly used to describe horses when they are well or unwell. Horse owners are now being asked to complete a survey to help evaluate the clarity and relevance of these terms. Their input will contribute directly to the development of a practical and effective tool for monitoring equine quality of life.

 

“The survey results will support the development and validity of our new measurement tool”, said Prof Jacky Reid, “especially when used in horses living with chronic conditions like arthritis or laminitis where their quality of life is significantly compromised.”

 

All responses are anonymous and used solely for research. 

For more details, see:

https://zoetis.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5mq13ASuyVTAqLc?Q_CHL=qr

 

For further information contact Dr Cory Noble at cory.noble@zoetis.com

Tracking donkey domestication

(c) Demidoff. Dreamstime.com

For thousands of years donkeys have played an important part in human progress. They have 
supplied power for farm work, and provided transport, proving particularly useful in semi-arid and otherwise inaccessible areas.

 To understand the history of the donkey’s domestication, teams at the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse (CNRS/ Université Toulouse 3 Paul Sabatier) and scientists from 37 laboratories around the world worked together to build and analyse the most complete panel of genomes ever studied for this animal. 

 

They constructed a comprehensive genome panel containing 207 modern and 31 ancient donkeys, as well as 15 wild equids. 

 

Reporting their findings in the journal Science, the researchers reveal that the donkey was first domesticated in Africa in 7,000 years ago, around the time when the Sahara became the desert region we know today. 

 

They state that it was only 2,500 years later that donkeys left their place of origin in Africa and reached Europe and Asia, where this species developed lineages that, in some cases, still exist today. 

 

“We found a strong phylogeographic structure in modern donkeys that supports a single domestication in Africa ~5000 BCE, followed by further expansions in this continent and Eurasia and ultimately returning to Africa.”

 

By analysing archaeological remains, scientists also uncovered evidence of a previously unknown genetic lineage of donkeys that lived in the Levant, around the eastern Mediterranean, 2,000 years ago. The influence of this lineage is thought to extend far beyond the region, and still today, fragments of its genetic heritage can be found throughout Europe. 

 

The researchers suggest that these discoveries call for new archaeological digs to find the initial source of domestication in Africa, as well as the sequencing of other early donkey genomes on both shores of the Mediterranean sea, to better understand the role of this animal in the history of trade between Europe and North Africa.

 

For more details, see:

 

The genomic history and global expansion of domestic donkeys.

 

Evelyn T. Todd, Laure Tonasso-Calvière, Lorelei Chauvey, Stéphanie Schiavinato, Antoine Fages, Andaine Seguin-Orlando, Pierre Clavel, Naveed Khan, Lucía Perez Pardal, Laura Patterson Rosa, Pablo Librado, Harald Ringbauer, Marta Verdugo, John Southon, Jean-Marc Aury, Aude Perdereau, Emmanuelle Vila, Matilde Marzullo, Ornella Prato, Umberto Tecchiati, Giovanna Bagnasco Gianni, Antonio Tagliacozzo, Vincenzo Tinè, Francesca Alhaique, João Luís Cardoso, Maria João Valente, Miguel Telles Antunes, Laurent Frantz, Beth Shapiro, Daniel G. Bradley, Nicolas Boulbes, Armelle Gardeisen, Liora Kolska Horwitz, Aliye Öztan, Benjamin S. Arbuckle, Vedat Onar, Benoît Clavel, Sébastien Lepetz, Ali Akbar Vahdati, Hossein Davoudi, Azadeh Mohaseb, Marjan Mashkour, Olivier Bouchez, Cécile Donnadieu, Patrick Wincker, Samantha A. Brooks, Albano Beja-Pereira,  Dong-Dong Wu, Ludovic Orlando.

 

Science, (2022). Vol 377, Issue 6611 pp. 1172-1180

 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo3503

How khulans get water

Khulan, a species of wild ass living in the Gobi Desert, travel over extremely long distances to find food and water, a recent study has shown.

The asiatic wild ass or khulan (Equus hemionus) used to be found throughout the arid lands of Central Asia and Mongolia, but their range is being limited by encroaching human activity.

As part of a long-term study into these animals, researchers at the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology (FIWI, Conservation Medicine Unit) at Vetmeduni Vienna have been tracking their activity. Analysis of the data has not only revealed new insights into the behaviour of these animals, but it has also provided a new way of identifying water sources. The work has been published in Scientific Reports.

The world’s largest remaining khulan population, in Mongolia’s South Gobi Region, provided the subjects for the study. Using GPS collars to track the animals in the 100,000 km² study area, the researchers identified 367 waterpoints. Of these, 53 received intensive and repeated uses by many different khulan over multiple years and so seem to be of high importance for the entire khulan population.

However, the researchers point out that the large number of less visited waterpoints are also important as they provide “stepping-stones” to switch between areas and allow for maximal movement flexibility.

According to the researchers, khulan drink nearly every day, with daily requirements of 12-15 litres, rising to 24 litres on hot days. The low water content of their plant resources further increases the animals’ need to drink. 

In the Mongolian Gobi, khulan roam over thousands of square kilometres, a range among the largest reported for terrestrial mammals. These large nomadic movements are a consequence of the availability of pasture and water changing within and between years. 

To survive and thrive in such landscapes, movement flexibility is key but may be threatened by increasing human impact on the khulan’s habitat resulting in habitat fragmentation. The researchers point out that, as in many other of the world’s drylands human exploitation of water for agriculture, industry, and domestic uses increasingly affects the availability of and access to water for wildlife.

Khulan tend to use pastures within 7 km of water and areas beyond 15-20 km of water become functionally inaccessible. “Hence, blocking access to water excludes khulan from the landscape and Identifying important waterpoints in arid landscapes like the Gobi Desert is therefore essential for wildlife-friendly land-use planning,” says John Payne.

According to the researchers, the most important variable for the seasonal variation in choice of water sources is snow cover (or the lack of it). In the deserts of Central Asia and Mongolia, a lack of snow, the low water content of the vegetation, and the freezing of small and stagnant water bodies can result in drought conditions during winter. In extreme cases, these factors can result in winter die-offs of local wildlife populations. 

The khulan´s highly mobile lifestyle is a coping strategy during localized catastrophic weather events, but this requires habitats that allow large-scale movements – which in turn necessitates maintaining landscape connectivity. The researchers emphasise the urgent need for regional conservation strategies so the khulan can continue to find the hidden liquid treasure of the Gobi Desert in the future.

Petra Kaczensky concluded: “Our results provide important data that can help guide a regional khulan conservation strategy, allow predictions for other khulan populations, and illustrate the overall importance of waterpoints for dryland herbivores.”

For more details, see:

Hidden treasure of the Gobi: understanding how water limits range use of khulan in the Mongolian Gobi

John C. Payne, Bayarbaatar Buuveibaatar, Diana E. Bowler, Kirk A. Olson, Chris Walzer & Petra Kaczensky

Scientific Reports (2020) vol 10, Article number: 2989

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59969-2