Lasting effects of climate disturbance on perennial grassland above-ground biomass production under two cutting frequencies.

Climate extremes can ultimately reshape grassland services such as forage production and change plant functional type composition. This 3-year field research studied resistance to dehydration and recovery after rehydration of plant community and plant functional types in an upland perennial grassland subjected to climate and cutting frequency (Cut+, Cut-) disturbances by measuring green tissue percentage and above-ground biomass production (ANPP). In year 1, a climate disturbance gradient was applied by co-manipulating temperature and precipitation. Four treatments were considered: control and warming-drought climatic treatment, with or without extreme summer event. In year 2, control and warming-drought treatments were maintained without extreme. In year 3, all treatments received ambient climatic conditions. We found that the grassland community was very sensitive to dehydration during the summer extreme: aerial senescence reached 80% when cumulated climatic water balance fell to -156 mm and biomass declined by 78% at the end of summer. In autumn, canopy greenness and biomass totally recovered in control but not in the warming-drought treatment. However ANPP decreased under both climatic treatments, but the effect was stronger on Cut+ (-24%) than Cut- (-15%). This decline was not compensated by the presence of three functional types because they were negatively affected by the climatic treatments, suggesting an absence of buffering effect on grassland production. In the following 2 years, lasting effects of climate disturbance on ANPP were observable. The unexpected stressful conditions of year 3 induced a decline in grassland production in the Cut+ control treatment. The fact that this treatment cumulated higher (45%) N export over the 3 years suggests that N plays a key role in ANPP stability. As ANPP in this mesic perennial grassland did not show engineering resilience, long-term experimental manipulation is needed. Infrequent mowing appears more appropriate for sustaining grassland ANPP under future climate extremes.

Perception and hedonic value of basic tastes in domestic ruminants.

Taste is one of the five senses that give ruminants and other animals an awareness of their environment, especially for food selection. The sense of taste, which recognizes sweet, bitter, salty, sour and umami basic tastes, is often considered of paramount importance as it is the last sense in use before foods are swallowed. It thus plays a fundamental biological role in aiding animals to regulate intake of suitable food and reject unsuitable food. However, despite potentially relevant production and welfare issues, only a few studies have investigated how ruminants perceive and evaluate the basic tastes. Here we review current knowledge on tasting abilities and hedonic value of basic tastes in domestic ruminants via the analysis of both their anatomical and neurological structures and their behavioral preferences. Studies of the organization and functioning of the anatomical and neurological structures responsible for the perception of taste in ruminants have shown that sheep, cattle and goats all have lingual receptors for all five basic tastes. However, these studies have mainly focused on the sweet and bitter tastes. They have shown in particular that cows have fewer genes coding for the bitter receptors than other mammals, making them more tolerant to this taste. This pattern has been linked to the differences in the range of toxins and so potentially in the occurrence of bitterness encountered by different species in their environment, depending on the nature of their diet. Studies of ruminant feeding behavior have shown that the taste inducing the greatest consensus in preferences is the umami taste, with a high positive hedonic value. The bitter taste seems to have a rather negative hedonic value, the salty taste either a positive or a negative one depending on body needs, while the sweet taste seems to have a positive value in cattle and goats but not in sheep. Finally, the hedonic value of the sour taste is uncertain. Besides the hedonic value, the animal may assign a signal value to the tastes. In ruminants, the unanimous preference for the umami taste, the need dependent preference for the salty taste, and the reluctance of sheep to associate a positive reward with the bitter taste suggest that these tastes would signal the presence of proteins, minerals and toxins, respectively.

Body fat content and feeding level interact strongly in the short- and medium-term regulation of plasma leptin during underfeeding and re-feeding in adult sheep.

Circulating leptin is regulated by food intake in the long, medium and short term; however, little is known about putative remnant effects of these successive regulations at any given time. To clarify this, two experiments were conducted in adult sheep, during which body condition parameters and plasma leptin were measured. During experiment 1, twenty ewes with normal body condition were either well fed (101 % of maintenance energy requirements (MER)) or underfed (41 % MER) for 166 d, then rapidly re-fed (at a mean of 208 % MER) for 3 d. Leptinaemia decreased after 14 d of underfeeding, remained depressed until day 166 and did not increase after 3 d re-feeding, whereas it was increased (+153 %; P < 0.05) by re-feeding the previously well-fed ewes. During experiment 2, twenty-four fat or lean ewes were either well fed (114 % MER) or underfed (52 % MER) for 94 d, and gradually re-fed for 2 d and maintained at a high feeding level (235 % MER) for 9 d. Underfeeding decreased leptinaemia in fat (from 4.19 to 2.63 ng/ml) but not lean ewes, and re-feeding increased leptinaemia after 5 d in lean previously well-fed (+123 %; P < 0.05) but not underfed ewes. In fat ewes, the impact of re-feeding was rapid (+144 %; P < 0.001 at 5 d) in previously well-fed ewes, whereas it was more gradual with a maximum at 11 d (+162 %; P < 0.01) in previously underfed ewes. In conclusion, leptinaemia is modulated by short-term energy intake level in interaction with long-term regulations involving nutritional history and body fatness, suggesting that a biological threshold of adiposity (about 20 %) is necessary to allow short- and medium-term leptin regulation.

Several subpopulations of neuropeptide Y-containing neurons exist in the infundibular nucleus of sheep: an immunohistochemical study of animals on different diets.

Conversely to rodents, the involvement of hypothalamic neuropeptide Y (NPY) neurons in the control of nutrition is poorly understood in ruminants such as sheep. Therefore, the aim of this work was to describe the NPY neurons of the diencephalon in ewes submitted to different diets. In colchicine-treated animals, large populations of NPY-immunoreactive (-ir) neurons were observed in a ventral and a lateral subpopulation of the infundibular nucleus (IN), in the median eminence, the pituitary stalk, and the dorsomedian and dorsocaudal nuclei. No labeled perikaryon was observed in the magnocellular neurons of the hypothalamus, although numerous labeled fibers were noted in the neural part of the pituitary. The pattern of distribution of NPY-ir neurons in the sheep hypothalamus is similar in many ways to those of rodents, but it presents also many specific characteristics that have not been previously described. In ewes that were fasted for 24 hours, or fed ad libitum, the number of NPY-ir neurons was the same whatever the hypothalamic structures. In underfed ewes (40% of maintenance for 24 weeks), the lateral subpopulation of the IN presented a higher number of NPY-ir neurons than observed in the 100% fed ewes. Conversely, in the ventral subpopulation, the animals refed ad libitum (at least 150% of maintenance for 4 days) presented a lower number of NPY-ir neurons than the other groups. The other NPY neuronal populations of the hypothalamus were not significantly modified by the dietary treatments. For the first time, we demonstrated the presence of two functionally distinct subpopulations of NPY neurons in the sheep IN. The variations of labeled neurons were correlated with plasma nonesterified fatty acid levels but not with leptinemia.