The Reliability of Fluctuating Asymmetry in Population Estimation: The Case of Feedlot Red Deer

Three FA indices showed correlations with age and magnitude of traits, but not in general. Significant correlations between magnitude of traits and their FA were more pronounced in AFA (12 traits) than in RFA (10 traits) in all age classes except yearlings. For the tray tine form (curvature), FA significantly correlated with its magnitude in young, middle-aged and ripe stags, which indicates that the trait is a reliable indicator of asymmetry. Significant differences in AFA among age classes were found in four traits (weight of dry antlers, volume of antlers, distal circumference of beams and total length of crown tines). By RFA, a significant difference among age classes was only found for the distal circumference of beams. Thus, AFA is a more vulnerable condition index. Contrary to other research findings, developmental instability was more pronounced in older age classes. In yearlings, no significant FA dependence on the trait of antler size was detected, but in certain traits, an asymmetry detected at an early age remains visible later as well, although in stags grown under relatively optimal (especially trophic) environment conditions, developmental instability was present anyway. This proposes two hypotheses for further research: Competition may be manifested even under controlled conditions, which might jeopardize the developmental stability of certain individuals, or some traits will show developmental instability regardless of relatively good environmental conditions.

Disentangling Individual Phases in the Hunted vs. Farmed Meat Supply Chain: Exploring Hunters' Perceptions in Italy

The growing body of literature concerning the hunted wild game meat (HWGM) supply chain is mainly focused on the final consumer, while little is known about upstream production processes. Even though the hunter plays a central role here, it is not well understood how hunters themselves perceive their role in the various phases of the production process. The present study explores Italian hunters’ perception of the HWGM supply chain and compares it to their perception towards the conventional farmed meat supply chain. We distinguish several phases of this production process and find that the final phase related to on-site game dressing is considered problematic, perhaps because hunters perceive themselves as less skilled than professional butchers. The results, in fact, show that hunters prefer hunted products over farmed meat, but that they consider hunted wild boar meat less safe compared to farmed pork. Findings from this study provide a rare glimpse from the inside of the supply chain and reveals the needs for a broad risk assessment analysis on the Italian game meat supply chain. Considering the development of the Italian emerging market of the HWGM, our results also highlight the relevance of training activities on hunters in order to increase the safety and quality of the final product.

Heritability Estimates of Antler and Body Traits in White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) From Genomic-Relatedness Matrices

Estimating heritability (h2) is required to predict the response to selection and is useful in species that are managed or farmed using trait information. Estimating h2 in free-ranging populations is challenging due to the need for pedigrees; genomic-relatedness matrices (GRMs) circumvent this need and can be implemented in nearly any system where phenotypic and genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data are available. We estimated the heritability of 5 body and 3 antler traits in a free-ranging population of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) on Anticosti Island, Quebec, Canada. We generated classic and robust GRMs from >10,000 SNPs: hind foot length, dressed body mass, and peroneus muscle mass had high h2 values of 0.62, 0.44, and 0.55, respectively. Heritability in male-only antler features ranged from 0.07 to 0.33. We explored the influence of filtering by minor allele frequency and data completion on h2: GRMs derived from fewer SNPs had reduced h2 estimates and the relatedness coefficients significantly deviated from those generated with more SNPs. As a corollary, we discussed limitations to the application of GRMs in the wild, notably how skewed GRMs, specifically many unrelated individuals, can increase variance around h2 estimates. This is the first study to estimate h2 on a free-ranging population of white-tailed deer and should be informative for breeding designs and management as these traits could respond to selection.