Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Some conventional measures of human fertility are also
useful as standards against which to assess the reproductive
performance of individual animals. For example, the total
fertility rate is a population measure of births to females
known to be at risk of reproducing, that is, tabulations of
births are made only during the precise intervals in time
that a female is receptive and is caged with a breeding age
male. This measure discounts reproductive downtime and
represents an ideal fertility performance for the colony
which can be compared to the completed family size. The
latter measure is simply the sum of live births actually
produced by an individual female over her reproductive
lifetime. The difference between these measures indicates
the effects of downtime (e.g. when the individual is not in
a breeding cage) or the existence of some other impediment
to full reproductive potential. Most measures of fertility
depend on multiple-entry data recording and pedigree
identification of individuals.
Appropriate aggregate measures of fertility and
mortality make it possible to predict the size and age/sex
structure of the colony a few years into the future.
Projection models of this sort are particularly useful if they
are combined with a financial component so that estimates
of future cost can be made.
Dyke, in the first edition of this chapter, said, “Standard
demographic techniques deserve wider utilization as
primate colony management tools, but the software tech-
nology required is surprisingly complex and has not been
extensively implemented” (see
Scobie, 1987; Dyke, 1989b
,
for two examples). In fact, some progress has been made in
this field: two popular tools for the demographic moni-
toring and modeling of captive populations are VORTEX
(
www.vortex9.org/vortex.html
), primarily designed for use
in wild populations, and PM2000 (
www.vortex9.org/
pm2000.html
), primarily designed for use in small zoo
populations. Several larger centers have developed their
own software for these purposes, either as part of their
animal record-keeping systems or as standard-alone
systems (at the Washington National Primate Research
Center (WaNPRC), where the author works, CAPTPRIM
Excel-based software is used). New tools to expand pop-
ulation modeling have been described:
Akkoc and Williams
(2005)
describe the use of the Crystal Ball add-in to the
Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software for sophisticated
stochastic modeling of captive populations of primates.
discussed in terms of animal identification and record
keeping in the section “Identification of pedigree relation-
ships” above.
Specialized computer programs may be useful for
determining relationships when genetic markers are used to
establish paternity, but the basic management task is to
structure matings so that the contribution of original colony
founders to ancestry of living animals (founder represen-
tation) is equalized as much as possible and so that close
inbreeding is avoided. Colony management software
should include these functions (
Scobie, 1987; Dyke,
1989a
). As stand-alone options, zoo population manage-
ment software can be useful: PM2000 (
www.vortex9.org/
pm2000.html
) includes this type of monitoring and
support for proper group assignment; programs like Pedi-
gree/Draw (
www.pedigree-draw.com
) and others allow for
the visualization of pedigree structure, and programs like
MateRx (
www.vortex9.org/materx.html
) and Cervus
(
www.fieldgenetics.com
)(
Kalinowski et al., 2007
) provide
very sophisticated analyses of
the genetic health of
a population.
SUMMARY
The unique identification of animals, including the identi-
fication of family relationships, is a critical necessity in
colony management practice and is closely linked to
methods of record keeping. Inexpensive hardware and
database software have made computerized data manage-
ment a nearly universal practice, but has led to a decreasing
standardization of data content and format. Reporting and
analysis are more easily programmed at the local colony
level to fit individual needs, although specialized software
is required for demographic and genetic analysis. Recently
renewed attempts on the part of National Institutes of
Health
National Center for Research Resources (NIH-
NCRR) have begun to provide new tools for metadatabase
(“database of databases”) and Internet levels to allow the
sharing of colony records, regardless of standards. Of more
importance in today's world is the proper management of
data, including quality of entry and sophistication and ease
of retrieval, and the ability to interface with collaborators
and regulatory agencies across the Internet.
e
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank Bennett Dyke who wrote the first edition of this
chapter. He kindly shared his electronic file version of the chapter and
allowed me to use, or not use, parts of his first chapter as I wished.
Much of the good in this chapter must be credited to him. Bennett was,
and is, a wonderful mentor to me in the world of primate population
genetics and management, as well as in the world of captive primate
record keeping. This work was supported by NIH Grant RR00166.
Monitoring Genetic Management
An increasingly important colony data management
concern comes with the recognition of the need for main-
taining genetic variability in the population and for
producing animals for research whose family relationships
are known. Identification of animals with respect to pedi-
gree is of course critical here, and this specific issue was
