Elsevier

Theriogenology

Volume 68, Issue 8, November 2007, Pages 1097-1103
Theriogenology

Dairy cattle exploratory and social behaviors: Is there an effect of cloning?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.theriogenology.2007.08.005Get rights and content

Abstract

While an increasing number of animals are produced by means of somatic cloning, behavioral studies on cloned animals are still rare. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the somatic cloning procedure has an influence on locomotion, exploratory, vocal and social behaviors of heifers. Ten heifers were used in the present study. Five of them were cloned heifers derived from somatic cells of three different Prim’Holstein cows and five others were same-age control heifers produced by artificial insemination. In addition to observations of social behaviors in the stable group, each animal was placed individually for a short time in an unfamiliar environment. Our results failed to show any statistical differences between clones and their controls both in frequencies of agonistic and non-agonistic behaviors. However, cloned heifers showed significantly more non-agonistic and less agonistic behaviors towards other cloned partners than towards control ones. This result also stood for control heifers. As far as their Hierarchical Index was concerned, three cloned heifers were highest ranking and two others lowest ranking. In this herd, social dominance appeared to be linked to body weight and age rather than to a cloning effect. In an unfamiliar environment, cloned and control subjects exhibited the same level of locomotion and vocalization. However, cloned heifers showed more exploratory behaviors than did control ones. This difference could be due to environmental factors during the postnatal period rather than to cloning.

Introduction

Since Dolly the sheep [1], several mammalian species, cattle [2], goat [3], mouse [4], pig [5], rabbit [6], cat [7], horse [8], rat [9] and more recently dog [10], have been cloned from somatic cells. A strong interest has developed for cloning cattle [11], [12], [13], [14], mainly for scientific and economical reasons. Cloning can be a successful process, though a high incidence of fetal loss is observed [15]. Somatic cloned calves have been characterized by high birth weight, frequent delivery by caesarean section and increased perinatal mortality [16], [17], [18]. Researchers thus are trying to identify causes of these problems in order to guarantee the health and well being of animals issued from cloning [19]. Cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer is still a new method of reproduction and there are very few studies about its consequences on the behavior of offspring. Does the cloning process affect the adaptive behavior of domestic animals? To ensure the well being of cloned animals and for a better knowledge of possible effects induced by cloning, behavioral studies are needed.

There have been very few behavioral studies on animals cloned from somatic cells, due to the limited number of such cloned animals. In mice, Tamashiro et al. [4] failed to show any effect of cloning on locomotor activity in home cage and on spatial performances in a Morris water task. In cattle, a study by Savage et al. [20] reported that four cloned heifers exhibited a higher level of curiosity, more grooming activities and were more aggressive and dominant than controls. These authors also described that these clones issued from the same donor preferred each other as companions to unrelated conspecifics, which may suggest a process of kin recognition. In that study, all the cloned heifers were derived from a single 13-year-old Holstein cow and the design did not allow disentangling putative effects of cloning and those due to the donor's genetic background.

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether or not somatic cloning had an influence on locomotion, vocalizations, exploratory and social behaviors of heifers derived from several donors. This was investigated both in an undisturbed mixed herd (cloned heifers and their age-matched controls) and through an isolation test in an unfamiliar environment.

Section snippets

Animals and housing

A total of 10 Prim’Holstein heifers belonging to two categories (cloned heifers and control heifers) were involved in the present study (Table 1). Five cloned heifers were produced from adult somatic cells of three different Prim’Holstein genotypes (A, B and C). The five control Prim’Holstein heifers were age matched and produced by artificial insemination from four different bulls in the same farm. The group was formed with 6 to 13.5 months old individuals. Before 6 months of age all clones

Results

For all social behaviors, no difference appeared between the 8 weeks of observation (H = 11.8; p = 0.1). Consequently, data across the whole period were pooled together.

Discussion

In the context of the group, social behaviors of cloned heifers, derived from several donors, were similar to those of matched controls. Non-agonistic interactions among clones or among controls were more frequent than between clones and controls. When tested individually in a new environment, clones and controls showed similar locomotor activity and vocalizations, however, cloned heifers explored more than their controls.

In our study, cloned heifers behaved in the same way as control AI

Acknowledgements

We thank the staff of the experimental farm INRA-Bressonvilliers for special care to the animals. We are indebted to Coralie Taquet to previous observations and to Prof. F. S. Dobson and Dr. Christine Moinard for helpful comments.

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