Effects of Grouping Feedlot Steers with a Range of Flight Speeds on Liveweight and Temperament Changes

Poor temperament cattle that are nervous and flighty do not perform as well in feedlots as good temperament cattle that are quiet and docile (Burrow and Dillon, 1997). There are contradictory anecdotal reports from industry about the effect of mixing cattle of different temperament on subsequent performance and temperament. Supposedly the presence of a few docile cattle in a feedlot pen-group will have a ‘calming’ effect on flighty pen-mates or the presence of a few flighty animals will ‘upset’ a group of quiet cattle. These hypotheses were tested using data in the experiment described by Petherick et al. (2000) where cattle were grouped into feedlot pens of good temperament, poor temperament and mixed (some good and some poor) temperaments. Animal production for a consuming world : proceedings of 9th Congress of the Asian-Australasian Association of Animal Production Societies [AAAP] and 23rd Biennial Conference of the Australian Society of Animal Production [ASAP] and 17th Annual Symposium of the University of Sydney, Dairy Research Foundation, [DRF]. 2-7 July 2000, Sydney, Australia.

Quality of handling and holding yard environment, and beef cattle temperament: 1. Relationships with flight speed and fear of humans.

Numerous tests have been used to measure beef cattle temperament, but limited research has addressed the relationship between such tests and whether temperament can be modified. One-hundred-and-forty-four steers were given one of three human handling and yarding experiences on six occasions during a 12-month grazing period post-weaning (backgrounding): Good handling/yarding, Poor handling/yarding and Minimal handling/yarding. At the end of this phase the cattle were lot-fed for 78 days, with no handling/yarding treatments imposed, before being transported for commercial slaughter. Temperament was assessed at the start of the experiment, during backgrounding and lot-feeding by flight speed (FS) and a fear of humans test, which measured the proximity to a stimulus person (zone average; ZA), the closest approach to the person (CA) and the amount the cattle moved around the test arena (total transitions; TT). During backgrounding, FS decreased for all treatments and at the end of backgrounding there was no difference between them. The rate of decline, however, was greatest in the Good group, smallest in the Minimal group with the Poor intermediate. In contrast, ZA was affected by treatment, with a greater reduction for the Good group than the others (P = 0.012). During lot-feeding, treatment did not affect FS, but all groups showed a decrease in ZA, with the greatest change in the Poor group, the least in the Good and the Minimal intermediate (P = 0.052). CA was positively correlated with ZA (r = 0.18 to 0.66) and negatively with TT (r = -0.180 to -0.659). FS was consistently correlated with TT only (r = 0.17 to 0.49). These findings suggest that FS and TT measure a similar characteristic, as do ZA and CA, but that these characteristics are different from one another, indicating that temperament is not a unitary trait, but has different facets. FS and TT measure one facet that we suggest is general agitation, whilst ZA and CA measure fear of people. Thus, the cattle became less agitated during backgrounding, but the effect was not permanently influenced by the quantity and quality of handling/yarding. However, Good handling/yarding reduced fearfulness of people. Fear of people was also reduced during lot-feeding, probably as a consequence of frequent exposure to humans in a situation that was neutral or positive for the cattle.

The spatiotemporal dynamics of Tribolium castaneum (Herbst): adult flight and gene flow.

Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) has been used as a model organism to develop and test important ecological and evolutionary concepts and is also a major pest of grain and grain products globally. This beetle species is assumed to be a good colonizer of grain storages through anthropogenic movement of grain, and active dispersal by flight is considered unlikely. Studies using T. castaneum have therefore used confined or walking insects. We combine an ecological study of dispersal with an analysis of gene flow using microsatellites to investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics and adult flight of T. castaneum in an ecological landscape in eastern Australia. Flying beetles were caught in traps at grain storages and in fields at least 1 km from the nearest stored grain at regular intervals for an entire year. Significantly more beetles were trapped at storages than in fields, and almost no beetles were caught in native vegetation reserves many kilometres from the nearest stored grain. Genetic differentiation between beetles caught at storages and in fields was low, indicating that although T. castaneum is predominantly aggregated around grain storages, active dispersal takes place to the extent that significant gene flow occurs between them, mitigating founder effects and genetic drift. By combining ecological and molecular techniques, we reveal much higher levels of active dispersal through adult flight in T. castaneum than previously thought. We conclude that the implications of adult flight to previous and future studies on this model organism warrant consideration.

Flight directionality of Tribolium castaneum soon after take-off under glasshouse and field conditions

Flight directionality of the rust-red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), was investigated under glasshouse and field conditions using sticky traps placed around dense experimental infestations of T. castaneum derived from field-collected samples. Although beetles of this species are known to fly quite readily, information on flight of beetles away from grain resources is limited. Under still glasshouse conditions, T. castaneum does not demonstrate strong horizontal or vertical trajectories in their initial flight behaviour. Flight was significantly directional in half of the replicates, but trapped beetles were only weakly concentrated around the mean direction of flight. In the field, by contrast, emigration of T. castaneum was strongly directional soon after flight initiation. The mean vector lengths were generally >0.5 which indicates that trapped beetles were strongly concentrated around the calculated mean flight direction. A circular-circular regression of mean flight vs. mean downwind direction suggested that flight direction was generally correlated with downwind direction. The mean height at which T. castaneum individuals initially flew was 115.4 ± 7.0 cm, with 58.3% of beetles caught no more than 1 m above the ground. The height at which beetles were trapped did not correlate with wind speed at the time of sampling, but the data do indicate that wind speed significantly affected T. castaneum flight initiation, because no beetles (or very few; no more than three) were trapped in the field when the mean wind speed was above 3 m s−1. This study thus demonstrates that wind speed and direction are both important aspects of flight behaviour of T. castaneum, and therefore of the spatio-temporal dynamics of this species.