Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

The UK Government has set an ambitious target to meet Net-Zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, has pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030, and has legal requirements to reduce ammonia emissions. Greenhouse gases pose a threat to our environment by driving climate change. Ammonia reacts with other substances in the air to form particulate matter, which is damaging to human and animal health, causes damage to vulnerable habitats through acidification, and the nitrogen in ammonia can be re-emitted as nitrous oxide (a potent GHG), also contributing to climate change. In the UK, agriculture is responsible for 11% of GHGs and 87% of ammonia emissions. Around 50% of GHGs and 75% of ammonia emissions from agriculture are associated with livestock or their wastes. Therefore, reducing emissions of these gases from agriculture is vital to meeting these ambitious commitments. However, there is a real risk that implementing a mitigation measure to reduce one particular gas could lead to increases in one or more of the others. It is important to identify, quantify, and optimise these potential trade-offs to ensure that a net reduction in all emissions is achieved. Currently there are very few facilities with the capability to measure emissions of all these gases (methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and ammonia) simultaneously from individual animals, which is apparent in the very low number of studies reporting all of them. The addition of ammonia and nitrous oxide emission measurement capability to our current respiration chamber facility (GreenCow - measuring methane and carbon dioxide), alongside upgrades to the current system to improve reliability and energy efficiency, would create an ultra-modern, state-of-the-art research facility allowing the comprehensive assessment of the net environmental impact of mitigation measures. The facility is designed to meet the requirements for beef cattle, but methods for measuring non-lactating dairy cattle, small ruminants (e.g., sheep and goats) poultry, pigs and for slurry studies will be developed to vastly expand the user-base for the new equipment. The aim for the new equipment will be to provide new knowledge on impacts on the key pollutants of nitrous oxide and ammonia. Gaining comprehensive underpinning data supporting reductions in all emissions when mitigation measures are applied, or quantifying and optimising trade-offs between gases, will improve cohesion between different policy objectives and will help improve farmer and consumer confidence leading to greater uptake.

This project is dedicated to assessing the effectiveness of novel feed additives, specifically b-glucan and oligosaccharides derived from yeast and cereal, in stimulating host antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) within the natural environment. The objective is to understand how nutritional supplementation with these feed additives can influence the expression of avian host AMPs in the gut, particularly under mild sub-clinical disease conditions. The study has three primary objectives. Firstly, it aims to enhance broiler immune and metabolic responses in antibiotic-free diets by optimising the structure and function of b-glucan. Secondly, the study seeks to understand the mode of action of avian antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in the gut and establish a diagnostic marker to ensure consistent commercial application of novel feed additives. Lastly, the research aims to establish a correlation between the concentration and inhibitory capabilities of these AMPs against bacterial, viral, and parasitic pathogens in the avian gut.

Social chaos caused by sudden formation of new social groups is a regular occurrence in livestock systems and can occur in wild populations. For species where social interactions are regulated by dominance-subordinance relationships, this results in the need to establish new dominance relationships simultaneously and rapidly with a large number of unfamiliar individuals. Much effort has focused on quantifying the ultimate outcome of how well individuals or groups have navigated this period of chaos once a steady state of stability has been reached. We know much less about how animals dynamically navigate the social milieu on a moment-by-moment basis when transitioning from wholesale unfamiliarity to familiarity and relative social stability. However, this dynamic process is critical to understanding the ultimate outcomes for welfare or productivity and how we can influence them. Specifically, we do not know how much flexibility individuals exhibit in social decision making in this period of chaos, and the extent to which this is influenced by genotype or cognitive ability. The project will test the following hypotheses: (1) that animals with high cognitive ability show greater behavioural flexibility when navigating a chaotic social environment; (2) that greater behavioural flexibility results in fewer injuries from aggressive behaviour; and (3) that behavioural flexibility is heritable