Special Issue "The Animal–Human Interfaces in Physiology of Reproduction: The Research to Improve Performance, as well as Animal and Human Health"
A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Physiology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2021.
Special Issue Editors
Interests: animal physiology; biostatistics; animal production; rabbit; behavior; nutritional and metabolic diseases; animal models.
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Interests: livestock biodiversity; lactation and mammary gland physiology, animal physiology
Interests: physiology of reproduction; physiology of nutrition and digestive system; rabbit; animal models of inflammation; nutraceuticals
Interests: animal physiology; physiology of reproduction; animal endocrinology; ruminant reproduction; follow-up of pregnancy and trophoblast well-being; buffalo.
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The physiology of animal reproduction is one of the oldest and most recognized fields in scientific research, but it is always evolving. The curiosity of researchers in animal reproduction science is ancestral and modern at the same time, as it responds to different needs that intertwine and overlap seamlessly. Advances in reproductive physiology can improve animal welfare, increase production and livestock sustainability, affect the quality of foods of animal origin such as milk and colostrum, and help wildlife conservation and management. Finally, several species, ranging from lower vertebrates to large animals, represent appropriate models to study human reproductive disorders such as infertility and pregnancy-related disorders. The research in this field therefore has ethical and welfare implications for the animal as well as socio-economic and health implications for the human being. Thus, your research in animal physiology reproduction could be placed in one of these animal–human interfaces.
We invite reviews and original research papers that address the basic and applied research in the physiology of animal reproduction. This field could extend to the reproductive management of companion and farm animals; the influence of nutrition on reproduction; the relationships between reproduction, breast function, and newborn development; the quality of the animal product; the welfare of the livestock or wild species; the conservation of biodiversity; and human reproductive disorders. However, it probably will be linked to both animal and human health.
Dr. Laura Menchetti
Dr. Giulio Curone
Prof. Gabriele Brecchia
Dr. Olimpia Barbato
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- physiology of reproduction
- pathophysiology of reproduction
- animal models
- endocrinology of reproduction
- physiology of milk and colostrum production
- nutrition and reproduction
- comparative research
- reproductive management
- food animal products
- biodiversity conservation and expansion
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Inflammatory correlated response in two lines of rabbit selected divergently for litter size environmental variability
Maria Jose Argente Carrascosa
Simple Summary: Animal welfare is a priority objective for livestock industry. Litter size environmental variability has been related to environmental sensitivity. A divergent selection experiment for environmental variance of litter size variance was carried out successfully in rabbits during thirteen generations. The low line showed a lower inflammatory response and susceptibility to infectious disorders than the high line. In conclusion, the decrease of environmental sensitivity seems to increase the adaptation of animal to the environment, thus its welfare.
Abstract: A divergent selection experiment for environmental variance of litter size variance was carried out in rabbits during thirteen generations. The aim of this study was to evaluate haematological and the inflammatory biomarkers levels, as well as, biochemical parameters in the two lines of the experiment, in order to analyse the effect of selection on susceptibility to diseases. A total of 78 females were used in this study, 39 from each line. The line selected for litter size heterogeneity (the high line) showed lower white blood leukocyte count (WBC) (-0.87 x103/µl), lower percentage of basophils (-0.11%), higher concentration of TNF-α (+13.8 pg/ml) and greater concentration of CRP (+38.1µg/ml) than the line selected for litter size homogeneity (the low line). The high line had also higher concentrations of bilirubin, cholesterol, gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) compared to the low line (difference between lines +0.08 µmol/L, +0.08 µmol/L, +0.14 µmol/L, +2.4 U/L and +0.35 U/L, respectively). The high line showed higher inflammatory response and susceptibility to infectious disorders. In conclusion, the line selected to increase litter size environmental variability seems to have a poor capacity to cope with environmental stressors.