Negative play contagion in calves

Abstract Play is a strong outwardly directed, emotional behaviour and can contagiously spread between individuals. It has been suggested that high-playing animals could ‘seed’ play in others, spreading positive affective states. Despite the current interest in play contagion there has been no previo...

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Autores principales:	Verena Größbacher, Alistair B. Lawrence, Christoph Winckler, Marek Špinka
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2020
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/430cb4d599a24478b80e0eff6758f195
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:430cb4d599a24478b80e0eff6758f1952021-12-02T16:18:03ZNegative play contagion in calves10.1038/s41598-020-78748-72045-2322https://doaj.org/article/430cb4d599a24478b80e0eff6758f1952020-12-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-78748-7https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Play is a strong outwardly directed, emotional behaviour and can contagiously spread between individuals. It has been suggested that high-playing animals could ‘seed’ play in others, spreading positive affective states. Despite the current interest in play contagion there has been no previous attempt to measure the strength of the play contagion effect. The calf (Bos taurus) is ideal for testing the strength of play contagion as play in calves is strongly related to energy intake from milk. We manipulated play in calves through their milk allowances and housed the calves in uniform groups all on the same milk allowance (high = UHigh or low = ULow) or in mixed groups with calves in the same group receiving either a high (= MHigh) or low (= MLow) milk allowance. We measured locomotor play using accelerometers on two consecutive days when calves were four and eight weeks old, in order to study play contagion over a protracted developmental window. We anticipated that differences in the level of play contagion between treatment groups would result in difference in the play levels observed in the MLow and ULow individuals. Contrary to our expectations we found that spontaneous play was suppressed in the high-milk calves housed in mixed groups (MHigh), in comparison to calves housed with group mates all receiving high-milk (UHigh). These results are the first to quantify a negative play contagion effect, particularly in a situation of long-term contact, and may suggest that negative contagion has a stronger effect on play behaviour than positive contagion.Verena GrößbacherAlistair B. LawrenceChristoph WincklerMarek ŠpinkaNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Verena Größbacher Alistair B. Lawrence Christoph Winckler Marek Špinka Negative play contagion in calves
description	Abstract Play is a strong outwardly directed, emotional behaviour and can contagiously spread between individuals. It has been suggested that high-playing animals could ‘seed’ play in others, spreading positive affective states. Despite the current interest in play contagion there has been no previous attempt to measure the strength of the play contagion effect. The calf (Bos taurus) is ideal for testing the strength of play contagion as play in calves is strongly related to energy intake from milk. We manipulated play in calves through their milk allowances and housed the calves in uniform groups all on the same milk allowance (high = UHigh or low = ULow) or in mixed groups with calves in the same group receiving either a high (= MHigh) or low (= MLow) milk allowance. We measured locomotor play using accelerometers on two consecutive days when calves were four and eight weeks old, in order to study play contagion over a protracted developmental window. We anticipated that differences in the level of play contagion between treatment groups would result in difference in the play levels observed in the MLow and ULow individuals. Contrary to our expectations we found that spontaneous play was suppressed in the high-milk calves housed in mixed groups (MHigh), in comparison to calves housed with group mates all receiving high-milk (UHigh). These results are the first to quantify a negative play contagion effect, particularly in a situation of long-term contact, and may suggest that negative contagion has a stronger effect on play behaviour than positive contagion.
format	article
author	Verena Größbacher Alistair B. Lawrence Christoph Winckler Marek Špinka
author_facet	Verena Größbacher Alistair B. Lawrence Christoph Winckler Marek Špinka
author_sort	Verena Größbacher
title	Negative play contagion in calves
title_short	Negative play contagion in calves
title_full	Negative play contagion in calves
title_fullStr	Negative play contagion in calves
title_full_unstemmed	Negative play contagion in calves
title_sort	negative play contagion in calves
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/430cb4d599a24478b80e0eff6758f195
work_keys_str_mv	AT verenagroßbacher negativeplaycontagionincalves AT alistairblawrence negativeplaycontagionincalves AT christophwinckler negativeplaycontagionincalves AT marekspinka negativeplaycontagionincalves
_version_	1718384226735226880

Negative play contagion in calves

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