Certain temperament traits that exist may be accurate predictors of the behaviour animals will exhibit towards stockpersons and their offspring after parturition. A total of 184 beef cattle in year 1 and 169 in year 2 (99 of these were also tested in year 1) were run through a chute complex and individually restrained before calving to see if their response predicted their behaviour after calving. Pre-calving measurements included exertion force applied against the headgate, a subjective temperament score, the response to a stockperson standing in front of the headgate and the exit speed from the chute. Within 2 d after calving, the cows response to her calf, stockpersons and a predator model were recorded during standardized testing. A blood sample from each calf was collected to measure total serum protein and the calfs adjusted 205 d weaning weight was recorded in year 1. A principal component analysis was used to reduce the number of variables. The components were then used to generate multiple regression trees. The results of this study indicated that many measures of maternal behaviour were not related to the temperament of the animal. The amount of time the cow spends greater than 3m from the calf when it is being handled was somewhat related to temperament; however, this variable may indicate fearfulness of people rather than maternal behaviour. It appears that a cows temperament is, in general, a poor predictor of maternal behaviour. A producer survey was also conducted on 168 cattle producers at 3 Saskatchewan cattle events. The cumulative number of cows owned by the respondents was 33,621, 5.7% of which were reported to be dangerous (cows the producer judged would hurt them after calving if given the chance). The majority of farms (76.2%) had at least one dangerous cow. Mis-mothering (i.e. the cow abandoned or did not care for her calf) had an incidence of 1.4% of cows, and occurred on 56.3% farms. Producers are more tolerant of aggressive cows and are less likely to cull them than cows which abandon or mis-mother their calves.

Certain temperament traits that exist may be accurate predictors of the behaviour animals will exhibit towards stockpersons and their offspring after parturition. A total of 184 beef cattle in year 1 and 169 in year 2 (99 of these were also tested in year 1) were run through a chute complex and individually restrained before calving to see if their response predicted their behaviour after calving. Pre-calving measurements included exertion force applied against the headgate, a subjective temperament score, the response to a stockperson standing in front of the headgate and the exit speed from the chute. Within 2 d after calving, the cows response to her calf, stockpersons and a predator model were recorded during standardized testing. A blood sample from each calf was collected to measure total serum protein and the calfs adjusted 205 d weaning weight was recorded in year 1. A principal component analysis was used to reduce the number of variables. The components were then used to generate multiple regression trees. The results of this study indicated that many measures of maternal behaviour were not related to the temperament of the animal. The amount of time the cow spends greater than 3m from the calf when it is being handled was somewhat related to temperament; however, this variable may indicate fearfulness of people rather than maternal behaviour. It appears that a cows temperament is, in general, a poor predictor of maternal behaviour. A producer survey was also conducted on 168 cattle producers at 3 Saskatchewan cattle events. The cumulative number of cows owned by the respondents was 33,621, 5.7% of which were reported to be dangerous (cows the producer judged would hurt them after calving if given the chance). The majority of farms (76.2%) had at least one dangerous cow. Mis-mothering (i.e. the cow abandoned or did not care for her calf) had an incidence of 1.4% of cows, and occurred on 56.3% farms. Producers are more tolerant of aggressive cows and are less likely to cull them than cows which abandon or mis-mother their calves.

Maternal behaviour during the peri-partum period, albeit in differing forms, can be observed in all mammals, thus it must serve an important evolutionary purpose in enabling the successful raising of offspring. Maternal behaviour is comprised of a large suite of behaviours; in rodents these are generally defined as lactation, pup retrieval, maternal aggression and pup grooming. The maternal behaviour circuitry involves many brain regions including the hypothalamus and the limbic system which work together to regulate the motor, motivational and emotional demands of the lactation period. The main aim of this thesis is to understand how different neuromodulators, specifically oxytocin (OXT), vasopressin (AVP), allopregnanolone (AP) and GABA, influence the expression of maternal behaviour, especially maternal aggression, and where in the brain they act to control this. Maternal aggression in rats changes dramatically throughout pregnancy, parturition and lactation. This expression is highly influenced by pups and during early lactation, pup cues are essential in maintaining it. Towards the end of lactation pup cues appear to result in the down regulation of maternal aggression. The maternal aggression circuitry is highly complex and involves many of the brain regions highlighted to be involved in maternal behaviour. The neuropeptides, OXT and AVP, are observed to have significant changes in their systems that correlate with maternal aggression, specifically within the BnST and PVN. This leads to the proposal they work oppositely to control maternal aggression by regulating fear and anxiety in the lactating rat. There is also evidence the OXT system mediates the motor output of maternal aggression. AP and GABA are also important in maternal behaviour, especially in relation to fear; whether this in context with OXT to enable maternal aggression or if they are a back up mechanism for OXT secretion malfunctioning remains to be determined. By understanding the complex maternal behaviour neural circuitry and how neuromodulators work to control it, enables the development of potential therapies for disorders a woman may experience during the peri-partum period. Prevention of these disorders is not only beneficial to the mother and her immediate family but is also crucial for her offspring’s development in prevention of adulthood disorders stemming from their childhood experience which can impact their own paternal or maternal care ability.

The neuropeptide hormone oxytocin plays an integral role in mammalian reproductive endocrinology and behaviour. It has been utilised to study the physiological factors driving maternal behaviour in both laboratory and domestic mammals, but few studies have successfully detected oxytocin in wild individuals, or linked detected concentrations to the behaviours they exhibit. Phocid seals present an excellent system in which to study oxytocin's effects on maternal behaviour in the wild. The energetic constraints placed on a phocid mother during the dependant period should cause strong selection pressure for behaviour that maximises reproductive success with the least cost to the mother. However in many phocid species, substantial variations in maternal behaviour persist. In order to investigate whether oxytocin plays a role in driving this variation, behavioural and hormonal datasets were collected from grey seal mothers and pups on two breeding colonies in Scotland. A protocol for the detection of plasma oxytocin in phocid seals was successfully developed, along with the methodology to manipulate peripheral oxytocin concentrations to directly test the hormone's impact on behaviour. Both correlatory studies on natural oxytocin concentrations and behaviour in wild mother-pup pairs and manipulation experiments on newly weaned pups show that plasma oxytocin concentrations influence behaviours that makes mother – pup separation less likely. These include increasing the time spent in close proximity to each other, increasing the number of checks performed on the pup and reducing the aggressive behaviour directed towards the other individual. Additionally, plasma oxytocin could be used as an indicator of weak maternal bonds between mother and pup, which resulted in behaviours such as abandonment and fostering. This study highlights the potential of oxytocin for studying variations in behaviours critical to an individual's reproductive success and provides the methodological framework for studies on other wild species to be conducted in the future.

There is a paucity of research examining the neurobiological functioning of new mothers who have experienced parental loss during development. The current study investigated the relationship between inconsistent (IC) versus consistent (CC) care and brain activity in regions that comprise a putative neurobiological model of mothering. Mothers were shown positive and negative pictures of their own and an unfamiliar infant. Through repeated measures ANOVAs, it was found that BOLD activity was greater for own infant in the nucleus accumbens (NAC) and amygdala (AMY) and that positive pictures elicited greater BOLD response in the NAC, AMY and anterior cingulate cortex. Interestingly, IC mothers show an even greater response own infant in the NAC and left hypothalamus (HYPO). In the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, IC mothers showed greater BOLD response to other infant. Thus, functioning of the maternal circuit, which includes areas strongly implicated in reward, may be altered by early experiences.

There is a paucity of research examining the neurobiological functioning of new mothers who have experienced parental loss during development. The current study investigated the relationship between inconsistent (IC) versus consistent (CC) care and brain activity in regions that comprise a putative neurobiological model of mothering. Mothers were shown positive and negative pictures of their own and an unfamiliar infant. Through repeated measures ANOVAs, it was found that BOLD activity was greater for own infant in the nucleus accumbens (NAC) and amygdala (AMY) and that positive pictures elicited greater BOLD response in the NAC, AMY and anterior cingulate cortex. Interestingly, IC mothers show an even greater response own infant in the NAC and left hypothalamus (HYPO). In the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, IC mothers showed greater BOLD response to other infant. Thus, functioning of the maternal circuit, which includes areas strongly implicated in reward, may be altered by early experiences.

The aim of this thesis was to conduct the ethological observation of the meat cows´ maternal behaviour in the period of calving. The observation was realized on the farm with utility breeding of meat cows Milná at an altitude of 800 m, where two herds (A, B) of 20 heads were formed. In herd A, there were horned crossbred cows of Masný Simentál breed that were placed on the pastures, including 20 ha winter rally, year-round. In herd B, there were also the crossbred cows of Masný Simentál breed that were stabled in the empty reconstructed shed organized in boxes during the wintertime. In herd A, 55% of cows calved during the daylight. The biggest incidence of parturitions was registered from 6:30 to 8:30 am (36 %). 65 % of cows calved out of the herd in the distance from 200 m to 450 m. The first suction at 90% of calves happened without the keeper´s assistance. Among the stabled cows, only 25 % of them calved during the daylight, mainly from 7:00 to 8:00 am. 50% of cows calved in the corridor. The first suction without the keeper´s assistance occurred at 85 % of calves. Placement of meat cows into the shed during winter proved to be suitable due to better care of both the cow and the calf. Cows winter in better climatic conditions that can, for example, positively influence their longevity. Devastation of the winter rally lands decreases markedly.

Ethological observation of maternal sheep behaviour took place over the year 2009, particularly in spring and autumn. Direct observation was chosen as the monitoring method. The values obtained were recorded in special ethograms. In total, 30 parturition of the valachian sheep were observed.

Following decades of research on stress and its impact on behaviour, it is now widely accepted that selective psycho-pathologies, in particular clinical depression are more prevalent in humans with prior history of life-stress events. Interest in stress has led to questions about how it might affect the physiology and behaviour of animals exposed indirectly during gestational development. Not unexpectedly gestational stress has been shown to affect the offspring in several ways: endocrine responses to stress are elevated, fear, arousal and affective disturbances are all subject to vary if the pregnant animal is subjected to periods of aversive stimulation. Beginning in 1997, Michael Meaney of McGill University produced a series of publications suggesting that peri-natal events influence offspring and infant development, not via physical discomfort or physiological disturbance, but does so through modifications of maternal behaviour. Highly nurturant mothers (those who engage in active arched-back nursing (ABN), and spend more time licking and grooming (L/G) their pups), programme their offspring with improved cognitive abilities, decreased anxiety and fear, and reduced HPA axis hormone secretion. Low-nurturant mothers, who engage in less ABN and less L/G, tend to programme the opposite responses in their offspring. Our initial foray into this field was to investigate if gestational stress might also produce responses in the offspring via changes in maternal behaviour, and indeed ABN and L/G were reduced in dams which were subjected to gestational stress. We queried why stressed Dams would be less maternal towards their infants, and tested gestationally-stressed Dams in the Porsolt test for depressive-like behaviour. Our results suggested that these stressed Dams were actually depressed and this resulted in less maternal behaviour. Human mothers with depression are also less maternal and have been shown to divest themselves of infant care much like our prenatally-stressed Dams. On this basis we have proposed that gestational stress induced decrements in maternal behaviour represent a novel rat model for postnatal depression with face and construct validities. In the present work we have attempted to replicate the findings of Smythe's group (Smith et al., 2004), and have investigated the potential for antidepressants to alter the influence of gestational stress on maternal behaviours and depressive-like response, and whether or not the offspring are modified by maternal treatment with ant-depressants. Approximately 140 time-mated, lister hooded rats were generated in house, and subjected to gestational stress on days 10-20 (1hr restraint/day) or remained undisturbed in their home cages. Following birth, cohorts of control and stressed Dams were administered vehicle or an antidepressant (imipramine 15mg/kg; or sertraline 10mg/kg) once daily until postnatal day 10. We assessed maternal Porsolt activity, nurturance (ABN, L/G, nest building) and anxiety-like behaviour in the elevated plus maze (EPM). Representative offspring of each Dam's treatment conditions were maintained post weaning and assessed in the Porsolt and EPM to determine if any changes in maternal behaviour elicited by the antidepressants altered their behavioural programming. Our findings confirm that Dams show depressive-like symptoms following gestational stress, and that administration of antidepressants to the Dams reduces depressive-like behaviour and increased maternal care. We propose that rat gestational stress is a putative model for human postnatal depression. Prenatal stress effects on maternal behaviour in the rat Dam represent a novel, and innovative model for human postnatal depression.

The aim of my doctoral thesis is the detailed study of the behavioural and sociobiological principles associated with the period of lactation. Suckling data covering almost 80 foals of domestic horse (Equus caballus) was obtained within four years of observation in the National Stud in Kladruby nad Labem, Czech Republic. The data were evaluated together with the reproductive history of the mothers, their agonistic interactions and following analysis of the dominance position of subadult foals. The first study describes longer suckling (greater maternal care) in dominant mares compared to submissive ones. Dominant mares are also less disturbed during nursing, whereas they terminated the nursing of submissive mares more often. A possible competitive advantage for the offspring of dominant mares may arise from such behaviour. The second paper enlightens the reproductive strategy of mares facing double maternal investment; suckling of the foal and pregnancy at the same time. I found out, contrary to the expectations, that the pregnant mares neither suckled their foals less nor terminated more suckling compared to non-pregnant herdmates. They may try to compensate their suckling foal with the perspective of its early weaning due to ongoing pregnancy. In the third and fourth manuscript I studied, how...