Library
Browse resources published by our research team.
In addition to full texts of our peer-reviewed articles, our library includes research digests that break down our peer-reviewed articles; in-depth reports that thoroughly examine a topic; commentaries that explain the significance of particular issues in wild animal welfare science; and short communications that briefly survey a field or topic.
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Oxidative status: A general but overlooked indicator of welfare across animal species?
Beaulieu, M. (2024). Oxidative status: A general but overlooked indicator of welfare across animal species? BioEssays, https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202300205
Authored by Wild Animal Initiative Research Manager Michaël Beaulieu, this paper was published in August 2024 in BioEssays.
Abstract
Because of their ubiquity, plasticity, and direct effects on the nervous system, markers of oxidative status may be of great value to assess animal welfare across species and conditions in the wild. However, welfare biologists have not yet seized this opportunity, possibly because the validity of these markers as welfare indicators remains questionable. A validation process was, therefore, performed here using a meta-analytical approach considering three conditions assumed to impair the welfare of animals. With very few exceptions, two of the four considered markers consistently varied across these negatively-valenced conditions. By highlighting the current underrepresentation of markers of oxidative status in animal welfare studies, and by concretely illustrating that some of these markers can consistently reflect negative affective states, this article aims to encourage biologists to include these physiological markers in their toolbox to better measure, monitor, and perhaps also improve the welfare of animals in their natural habitat.