PhilSci Archive

Developmental Programming, Evolution, and Animal Welfare: A Case for Evolutionary Veterinary Science

Veit, Walter and Browning, Heather (2021) Developmental Programming, Evolution, and Animal Welfare: A Case for Evolutionary Veterinary Science. [Preprint]

[img]
Preview
Text
veitbrowning2021developmentalprogramming.pdf

Download (229kB) | Preview

Abstract

The conditions animals experience during the early developmental stages of their lives can have critical ongoing effects on their future health, welfare, and proper development. In this paper we draw on evolutionary theory to improve our understanding of the processes of developmental programming, particularly Predictive Adaptive Responses (PAR) that serve to match offspring phenotype with predicted future environmental conditions. When these predictions fail, a mismatch occurs between offspring phenotype and the environment, which can have long-lasting health and welfare effects. Examples include metabolic diseases resulting from maternal nutrition and behavioural changes from maternal stress. An understanding of these processes and their evolutionary origins will help in identifying and providing appropriate developmental conditions to optimise offspring welfare. This serves as an example of the benefits of using evolutionary thinking within veterinary science and we suggest that in the same way that evolutionary medicine has helped our understanding of human health, the implementation of evolutionary veterinary science (EvoVetSci) could be a useful way forward for research in animal health and welfare.


Export/Citation: EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL
Social Networking:
Share |

Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Veit, Walterwrwveit@gmail.com0000-0001-7701-8995
Browning, Heatherheather.browning@anu.edu.au0000-0003-1554-7052
Keywords: developmental programming; animal nutrition; predictive adaptive response; animal health; animal welfare; evolutionary medicine; maternal nutrition
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory
Specific Sciences > Biology > Function/Teleology
General Issues > Explanation
Specific Sciences > Medicine > Health and Disease
Specific Sciences > Medicine
Depositing User: Dr. Walter Veit
Date Deposited: 12 Dec 2021 01:11
Last Modified: 05 Feb 2023 14:14
Item ID: 19984
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory
Specific Sciences > Biology > Function/Teleology
General Issues > Explanation
Specific Sciences > Medicine > Health and Disease
Specific Sciences > Medicine
Date: 2021
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19984

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item