{"id":94,"date":"2013-02-27T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-27T11:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lutreola.eu\/?p=94"},"modified":"2014-09-25T11:40:20","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T11:40:20","slug":"article-about-low-breeding-efficiency-of-european-mink-in-captivity-what-causes-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/2013\/02\/article-about-low-breeding-efficiency-of-european-mink-in-captivity-what-causes-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Article about low breeding efficiency of European mink in captivity: what causes it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New <a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/zoo.21062\/abstract\" target=\"_blank\">research article<\/a> is just published on-line in Zoo Biology. It is about the problems behind low breeding success in European mink conservation breeding program.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first time the problem of aggressive and passive males has been properly mapped. It is a good starting point for attempts to solve this mystery.<\/p>\n<p>The abstract of the article (click <a title=\"Kiik_et_al_2013.pdf\" href=\"http:\/\/lutreola.eu\/index.php\/download_file\/view\/227\/362\/\">here<\/a> to download it):<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Causes of the Low Breeding Success of\u00a0European Mink (Mustela lutreola) in Captivity<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Kairi Kiik,1*<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Tiit Maran,2,3<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Astrid Nagl,4<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Kadri Ashford,2<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>and Toomas Tammaru1<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>1Department of Zoology, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia<\/em><br \/>\n<em>2Species Conservation Lab, Tallinn Zoological Gardens, Tallinn, Estonia<\/em><br \/>\n<em>3Institute of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia<\/em><br \/>\n<em>4Department of Biomedical Sciences and Biochemistry, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria<\/em><\/p>\n<p>High among\u2010individual variation in mating success often causes problems in conservation breeding programs. This is also the\u00a0case for critically endangered European mink and may jeopardize the long\u2010term maintenance of the species\u2019 genetic diversity\u00a0under the European mink EEP Program. In this study, breeding success of wild and captive born European minks at Tallinn\u00a0Zoological Garden are compared, and the mating behavior of the males is analyzed. Results show that wild born males\u00a0successfully mate significantly more often than captive born males (89% and 35%, respectively). On the basis of an extensive\u00a0record of mating attempts, both male aggressiveness and passivity are identified as primary causes of the observed mating\u00a0failures. All other potential determinants have only a minor role. Mating success as well as a male\u2019s aggressiveness and\u00a0passivity are shown to depend more strongly on the male than the female partner. Wedid not find any evidence that the behavior\u00a0of an individual is dependent on the identity of its partner. We suggest that aggressiveness and passivity are two expressions of\u00a0abnormal behavior brought about by growing up in captivity: the same individuals are likely to display both aggressive and\u00a0passive behavior. The results point to the need to study and modify maintenance conditions and management procedures of\u00a0mink to reduce the negative impact of the captive environment on the long\u2010term goals of the program.<\/p>\n<p>Zoo Biol. XX:XX\u2013XX,<br \/>\n2013. \u00a9 2013 Wiley Periodicals Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New research article is just published on-line in Zoo Biology. It is about the problems behind low breeding success in European mink conservation breeding program. This is the first time the problem of aggressive and passive males has been properly mapped. It is a good starting point for attempts to solve this mystery. The abstract [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95,"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/95"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lutreola.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}