ABSTRACT

Animal welfare is critical to buffer stress in captive animals and to ensure the reliability of data from studies. The most usual environmental enrichment technique (EE) for social non-human primates is the social enrichment. However, some experimental protocols require keeping individuals isolated, thus demanding other types of EE. We tested in six adult Callithrix jacchus females, single housed for experimental purpose, the stress buffering efficacy of a structural enrichment protocol (SEP) and SEP in combination with a foraging enrichment (FSEP) using fecal cortisol and behaviors to infer stress levels. Both types of EE improved welfare in different ways, while cortisol levels decreased with both EE as compared to the baseline, autogrooming, and piloerection increased after FSEP probably due to the new foods. Therefore, these findings support alternative practices of EE when social animals are living in isolation and reinforce the positive role of structural and food enrichment for decreasing stress markers. It also encourages studies on welfare with females, since its use as an animal model has increased.

摘要

动物福利对于缓冲圈养动物的压力和确保研究数据的可靠性至关重要。社会非人类灵长类动物最常用的环境富集技术（EE）是社会富集。然而，一些实验协议需要保持个人隔离，因此需要其他类型的 EE。我们在六个成年Callithrix jacchus中进行了测试雌性，为了实验目的而单独饲养，结构富集方案 (SEP) 和 SEP 与使用粪便皮质醇和行为来推断压力水平的觅食富集 (FSEP) 相结合的压力缓冲功效。两种类型的 EE 都以不同的方式改善了福利，而与基线相比，两种 EE 的皮质醇水平都降低了，FSEP 后的自动梳理和竖毛增加可能是由于新的食物。因此，这些发现支持当社会动物孤立地生活时，EE 的替代做法，并加强了结构和食物丰富对减少压力标志物的积极作用。它还鼓励研究女性的福利，因为它作为动物模型的使用有所增加。