Fights, flights and genes: contribution of behaviour genetics to equine athletic performance

Last changed: 21 December 2020

The main aim of the project is to identify genomic regions associated with psychological phenotypes critical for competition success and ability to handle stress in sport and harness race horses.

The project has the potential to provide significant scientific results regarding the genetic contribution to cognitive ability and stress resilience. Emerging research on the genetic basis of behavioural and physiological stress indicator traits might provide additional, valuable elements to determine ‘advantageous’ polygenic profiles in the development of coping strategies during stressful challenges, hence, increasing horse health and welfare.

Experts in genetics, behaviour, welfare, clinical veterinary medicine and exercise physiology will analyse the genome of different sport and harness racehorse (trotter) breeds.

Project goals:

  • To identify genes regulating behavioural and cognitive abilities important for stress management and competition success using the horse as model organism.
  • To test if the identified behavioural genetic variants have an effect on athletic performance.
  • To investigate if the identified variants/mutations are components of the fight-or-flight response and so may have been under selection pressure during the domestication process (e.g. reduced-fear/stress variants/mutations at these loci).

This is a collaborative study between the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Karolinska Institutet (KI), the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in Norway, the Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven in Belgium and the University of Sydney in Australia.

Do you want to contribute to research?

Fill in the survey to contribute to the ongoing research to identify genes that have an effect on behavior and that are of relevance for the performance of horses and their ability to cope with stress.  

Follow this link to start the survey

Facts:

Time period of the project: January 2019 - December 2021

Financial support: The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council - FORMAS (Research and development projects for future research leaders; ID: 2018-00859)


Contact

Maria Wilbe, Researcher, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Division of Molecular Genetics, SLU

Telephone: +46(0)73-6551989

E-mail: maria.wilbe@slu.se

Postal address: Inst för Husdjursgenetik, Box 7023, 75007 Uppsala

Visiting address: Ulls väg 26, Uppsala