MAJOR CONTROL OF ICG PIGS’ PASSIVE-DEFENSIVE BEHAVIOR TO HUMANS

Abstract

The paper explores domestic behavior (associated food and passive-defensive responses to humans) affected by heritage factors and environmental factors of two close generation of mini-pigs bred in ICG of SD RAS. The researchers used a human when feeding animals in groups as an aversive stimulation; individual feeding assumed a presence of human 14-16 hours or 2 hours after feeding. The authors found out phenotypic and genotypic differences of mini-pigs in their fear response to a human. The article ranges the factors according to their contribution to general variations of domestic behavior in the following way: age (0.4 %), gender (0.6 %), social isolation (1.9-2.8 %), boar genotype (13.6 %). The authors discovered inherited discrete polymorphism of mini-pigs, which includes three classes of phenotypes. Age and gender do not affect behavior variability of piglets from their 1.5-month age to puberty. Social isolation influences fear-response of piglets aged 1.5 month. The model of major inheritance controlled by autosomal diallel locus of the main effect FWH describes efficiently various domestic behavior of mini-pigs. The paper makes conclusion that inherited polymorphism of domestic behavior is a new source of adaptive variability for selective adaptation and efficient laboratory mini-pigs.