부산대학교 도서관

Simple Summary: Recent research shows that horses create social bonds through proximity and time with limited understanding of how these friendships affect how horses respond to stress. Studies show that horses with close social connections engage in mutual grooming (allogrooming) and that this occurs more frequently during and after stress. The purpose of the study was to determine if horses interacted with the same preferred social partners during stressful events as they do during non-stressful times and if they exhibit higher frequencies in social interactions during these stressful events. The study looked at videos of 200 domestic mares in two large socially stable groups under pasture (low stress) and confined (higher stress) conditions. The videos were coded for the frequency and duration of allogrooming sessions, partner preference, and lateralization (an indicator of social and emotional processing). The results showed that there was a higher frequency of allogrooming during stressful conditions and that horses showed specific preferences for partners with whom they would allogroom. These results indicate that horses will choose very specific grooming partners during times of stress, which suggests that horses adhere to the same "tend and befriend" social stress copying strategy as other social mammals. The findings support the idea that better understanding of equine social environments and needs can more accurately assess welfare and create better environments to support equine social needs. Studies show that horses express favoritism through shared proximity and time and demonstrate unique affiliative behaviors such as allogrooming (mutual scratching) with favorite conspecifics. Allogrooming also occurs more frequently during stress and has been observed to occur more frequently in domestic herds than feral. The role of partner preference, lateralization, and duration of allogrooming as measures of social bonding has remained unclear. The present study looked at two socially stable herds of mares (n = 85, n = 115) to determine the frequency, duration, visual field of view and partner preference during allogrooming in both pasture settings (low stress) and confined settings (higher stress). One hundred and fifty-three videos for both herds were coded for allogrooming behaviors with 6.86 h recorded in confined conditions and 31.9 h in pasture settings. Six allogrooming sessions were observed in the pasture setting with an average duration of 163.11 s. In confined settings, a total of 118 allogrooming sessions were observed with an average duration of 40.98 s. Significant (p < 0.01) differences were found between settings for duration (s), number of allogrooming pairs, and frequency of allogrooming (per min) for each herd. All observed allogrooming sessions involved pairs of favored conspecifics (one partner per horse). The current study suggests that horses may have friendships that can be observed through the demonstration of specific affiliative behaviors during times of stress with more frequent, but shorter affiliative interactions with preferred partners during times of stress. This context suggests that horses adhere to the "tend and befriend" principles of friendship in animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]