Université de Rennes 1, Laboratoire d'éthologie Animale et Humaine EthoS - UMR CNRS 6552, Station Biologique, Paimpont, France.
PLoS One. 2012;7(9):e44604. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0044604. Epub 2012 Sep 7.
Postures have long been used and proved useful to describe animals' behaviours and emotional states, but remains difficult to assess objectively in field conditions. A recent study performed on horses using geometric morphometrics revealed important postural differences between 2 horse populations differing in management conditions (leisure horses living in social groups used for occasional "relaxed" riding/riding school horses living in individual boxes used in daily riding lessons with more constraining techniques). It was suggested that these postural differences may reflect chronic effects of riding techniques on the horses' kinematics and muscular development. In the present study, we tried to evaluate the interest of postural measures to assess welfare in horses. This study was separated into 2 parts. First, 18 horses coming from these 2 types of populations (leisure/riding school horses) were submitted to 2 back evaluations by 1) manual examination (experienced practitioner) and 2) sEMG measures along the spine. We then measured neck roundness on 16 of these 18 horses. The results highlighted high correlations between manual and sEMG examinations over the spine. sEMG measures at the different locations were strongly correlated all over the spine. Moreover, neck postures and muscular activities were strongly correlated, horses with concave necks having higher sEMG measures both at precise locations (i.e. cervical sites) but also when comparing neck postures to the whole spine muscular activity highlighting the functioning of horses' back as a whole. Lastly, strong differences appeared between the populations, leisure horses being evaluated as having sounder spines, exhibiting lower sEMG measures and rounder neck than the riding school horses. sEMG measures and neck "roundness" seemed therefore to be reliable indicators of back disorders, easy to evaluate in field conditions. This highlights the accuracy of using postural elements to evaluate the animals' general state and has important implications for animals' welfare evaluations.
姿势长期以来一直被用于描述动物的行为和情绪状态，并被证明是有用的，但在野外条件下仍然难以进行客观评估。最近一项使用几何形态计量学对马进行的研究表明，在管理条件不同的两个马种群之间存在重要的姿势差异（休闲马生活在群体中，偶尔用于“放松”骑行/骑术学校马生活在单独的盒子中，用于每天的骑术课程，技术更具约束性）。有人认为，这些姿势差异可能反映了骑行技术对马的运动学和肌肉发育的慢性影响。在本研究中，我们试图评估姿势测量在评估马福利方面的意义。这项研究分为两部分。首先，18 匹马来自这两种种群（休闲/骑术学校马），由 1）手动检查（经验丰富的从业者）和 2）脊柱沿线的 sEMG 测量来评估 2 次背部。然后，我们测量了这 18 匹马中的 16 匹马的颈部圆度。结果突出了手动和 sEMG 检查在脊柱上的高度相关性。脊柱不同位置的 sEMG 测量值之间具有很强的相关性。此外，颈部姿势和肌肉活动之间具有很强的相关性，凹颈马的 sEMG 测量值在精确位置（即颈椎部位）较高，同时还将颈部姿势与整个脊柱肌肉活动进行比较，突出了马的背部作为一个整体的功能。最后，两个种群之间出现了明显的差异，休闲马的脊柱被评估为更健康，sEMG 测量值较低，颈部比骑术学校的马更圆。sEMG 测量值和颈部“圆度”因此似乎是背部疾病的可靠指标，在野外条件下易于评估。这突出了使用姿势元素评估动物一般状态的准确性，对动物福利评估具有重要意义。
