Adaptive mechanisms of livestock to changing climate

Abstract

In the current scenario, climate change is occurring all over the world, which directly or indirectly affecting the agricultural production as well as the production of livestock. The arid and semiarid region of the world, where more than 75 % population of livestock exists, will be going to have pronounced effect of climatic change. Amongst the other stresses, heat stress is the most vital climatic stress which drastically affects the productive potential of livestock, and sometimes it is lethal to animal survival in harsh conditions. High ambient temperature, air movement, solar radiation, wind speed and relative humidity are important attributes of the climatic variables. Amongst the above- mentioned variables, high temperature, radiation and humidity are the most important factors, which drastically affect the overall performance of livestock with substantial reduction in meat, milk and egg production. In this context, the chapter highlights the signifi cance of studying the impact of multiple stresses impacting livestock production simultaneously. The different adaptive means by which livestock respond to fl uctuation of climatic changes are physiological, blood- biochemical, neuroendocrine, cellular and molecular mechanisms, respectively. In present climate change scenario, several mitigation strategies are to be implemented by which the production of livestock may be sustained to an extent even in harsh climatic conditions.