Iglesias Pastrana Carlos, Navas González Francisco Javier, Ciani Elena, Arando Arbulu Ander, Delgado Bermejo Juan Vicente
Department of Genetics, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, University of Córdoba, 14014 Córdoba, Spain.
Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IFAPA), Alameda del Obispo, 14004 Córdoba, Spain.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Oct 3;11(10):2886. doi: 10.3390/ani11102886.
Several idiosyncratic and genetically correlated traits are known to extensively influence leadership in both domestic and wild species. For minor livestock such as camels, however, this type of behavior remains loosely defined and approached only for sex-mixed herds. The interest in knowing those animal-dependent variables that make an individual more likely to emerge as a leader in a single-sex camel herd has its basis in the sex-separated breeding of Canarian dromedary camels for utilitarian purposes. By means of an ordinal logistic regression, it was found that younger, gelded animals may perform better when eliciting the joining of mates, assuming that they were castrated just before reaching sexual maturity and once they were initiated in the pertinent domestication protocol for their lifetime functionality. The higher the body weight, the significantly ( < 0.05) higher the score in the hierarchical rank when leading group movements, although this relationship appeared to be inverse for the other considered zoometric indexes. Camels with darker and substantially depigmented coats were also significantly ( < 0.05) found to be the main initiators. Routine intraherd management and leisure tourism will be thus improved in efficiency and security through the identification and selection of the best leader camels.
已知有几种特殊的且与基因相关的特征会广泛影响家养和野生动物的领导力。然而，对于骆驼等小型家畜来说，这种行为类型的定义仍然很模糊，并且仅针对混性别畜群进行研究。了解那些使个体更有可能在单性别骆驼群中成为领导者的动物相关变量的兴趣，源于加那利单峰骆驼出于功利目的的性别隔离养殖。通过有序逻辑回归发现，较年轻的去势动物在吸引配偶加入时可能表现更好，前提是它们在接近性成熟时被阉割，并且一旦开始遵循相关的驯化方案以实现其终身功能。体重越高，在带领群体行动时等级排名得分就显著越高（<0.05），尽管这种关系对于其他考虑的体型指标似乎是相反的。毛色较深且色素大量减退的骆驼也被显著（<0.05）发现是主要的发起者。通过识别和选择最佳的领头骆驼，畜群日常管理和休闲旅游的效率和安全性将因此得到提高。
