Oxidative status: A general but overlooked indicator of welfare across animal species?

Authored by Wild Animal Initiative’s Senior Researcher Michaël Beaulieu, this paper was published in August 2024 in BioEssays.

An ant rests on a bright green leaf.

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.

Michaël Beaulieu

Michaël is a Senior Researcher at Wild Animal Initiative. Michaël completed his veterinary studies at the University of Nantes and his PhD on the ecophysiology and behavioral ecology of penguins at the University of Strasbourg. In his post-docs, he mostly worked on songbirds and butterflies. He has taught animal ecology and conservation, and organized ornithological excursions. Michaël has spent much time in polar regions (as a researcher and a naturalist guide) and is currently located in Germany.

michael.beaulieu@wildanimalinitiative.org

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Validating physiological markers as welfare indicators: the case of oxidative stress