Adaptive abilities of the females and sustainability of ruminant livestock systems. A review

Abstract

In a systemic approach, the breeder can be considered as the decisional component of the livestock system, whereas animals are usually depicted to be part of its biotechnical component. The animal itself is a biological system whose ability to survive, grow, reproduce and cope with the environnement and livestock practices play a major role in the ability of the livestock system to sustain. In such a conceptual representation of the system, the reproductive females draw a peculiar attention since they determine in a great part the productivity and the durability of the system through their abilities to maintain their own production level (milk production, numeric productivity) and to save their reproductive efficiency (repeated pregnancies and lactations) over years. Considering the animal level and its lifespan, it is clear that the abilities to adapt rely on behavioural and physiological regulatory processes. The study of the biological mechanisms involved in the adaptation to undernutrition is particularly interesting since regulatory processes implied in energy metabolism may interfere directly or indirectly with the reproductive function, and consequently, with the durability of the livestock system. A biological significance of such relationships between nutrition and reproduction is given that they allow the female to be informed about the associated risk of entering a productive process facing the uncertainty of the nutritional context. Although the general mechanisms implied in the ability to adapt to the underfeeding constraint are conserved among ruminants, the thresholds (or priorities) may largely differ according to the breed within the same species. Hence, in order to evaluate the ability of the ruminant livestock systems to perpetuate in hard environments (maintaining their production levels) or to assess sustainable objectives (opening bushy landscapes by increasing grazing pressure), animals' inherent adaptive potentialities have to be well known. © INRA, EDP Sciences, 2006.