Neutering practices for owned UK cats significantly influence feral, stray populations

Well-connected cat subpopulations mean that small changes in neutering pet cats have large effects on ferals and strays, per modelling study

2023-07-12

(Press-News.org) A new mathematical model of UK cat populations suggests that neutering of cats that belong to people not only affects the population dynamics of owned cats, but also affects feral, stray, and shelter subpopulations. Jenni McDonald of Cats Protection and co-authors present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 12.

More than ten million cats live as owned pets in UK homes, and hundreds of thousands of additional cats live in shelters or as free-roaming feral or stray cats. Cats may transition from any of these subpopulations to another. However, while many prior studies have investigated cat population dynamics, few have accounted for the connectivity between subpopulations, limiting understanding of how certain factors—such as neutering—within a specific subpopulation might also affect other subpopulations.

To help address that gap, McDonald and co-authors developed a mathematical model of cat population dynamics in the UK that includes all four subpopulations. It draws on real-world data to set parameters relating to several different factors, such as survival rates, fertility rates, seasonal breeding patterns, and rates of transitions between subpopulations. The researchers then used the model to simulate how neutering of female cats, as well as changes in other factors, might affect cat population dynamics.

In the simulations, neutering of female owned cats significantly influenced all subpopulations. Lower rates of neutering of female owned cats led to population booms within the other subpopulations, especially for stray cats. The simulations also showed that, even if neutering rates remain the same, neutering female owned cats at a younger age could decrease population growth rates for all subpopulations.

In the simulations, the factors with the greatest influence on overall cat population growth rate were survival and fertility rates of owned cats. Among the subpopulations, stray cats had the second-highest influence, followed by feral cats, and shelter cats had the least influence.

These findings underscore the importance of considering the interlinked nature of cat subpopulations and could help inform population management efforts. The researchers note that the availability of additional real-world cat data would help improve the accuracy of their model.

The authors add: “We previously had little robust understanding of just how important the links between cat subpopulations are. Our study shows that connectivity between cat subpopulations can have a big influence on population dynamics.”

#####

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287841

Citation: McDonald J, Finka L, Foreman-Worsley R, Skillings E, Hodgson D (2023) : Empirical modelling of Felis catus population dynamics in the UK. PLoS ONE 18(7): e0287841. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287841

Author Countries: UK

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

Neutering practices for owned UK cats significantly influence feral, stray populations 2

Neutering practices for owned UK cats significantly influence feral, stray populations 3

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Slow population declines might be going undetected, while later rates of extinction could increase exponentially

2023-07-12

Slow population declines might be going undetected, while later rates of extinction could increase exponentially ### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0285945 Article Title: The rate of species extinction in declining or fragmented ecological communities Author Countries: Greece, USA Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Simulation study of how body shapes and sizes affected energetic efficiency helps explain relative success of early Polynesian voyaging

2023-07-12

Simulation study of how body shapes and sizes affected energetic efficiency helps explain relative success of early Polynesian voyaging ### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287290 Article Title: Estimated energetic demands of thermoregulation during ancient canoe passages from Tahiti to Hawaii and New Zealand, a simulation analysis Author Countries: USA, Australia, New Zealand Funding: AM received financial support from the Maritime Encounters (M21-0018) project funded by Sweden's Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. ...

Surgical and engineering innovations enable unprecedented control over every finger of a bionic hand

2023-07-12

Prosthetic limbs are the most common solution to replace a lost extremity. However, they are hard to control and often unreliable with only a couple of movements available. Remnant muscles in the residual limb are the preferred source of control for bionic hands. This is because patients can contract muscles at will, and the electrical activity generated by the contractions can be used to tell the prosthetic hand what to do, for instance, open or close. A major problem at higher amputation levels, such as above the elbow, is that not many muscles remain to command the many robotic joints needed to truly restore the function of an arm and hand. A multidisciplinary team of surgeons and engineers ...

Robot team on lunar exploration tour

2023-07-12

On the Moon, there are raw materials that humanity could one day mine and use. Various space agencies, such as the European Space Agency (ESA), are already planning missions to better explore Earth’s satellite and find minerals. This calls for appropriate exploration vehicles. Swiss researchers led by ETH Zurich are now pursuing the idea of sending not just one solitary rover on an exploration tour, but rather an entire team of vehicles and flying devices that complement each other. The researchers equipped three ANYmal – a type of legged robot developed ...

How larger body sizes helped the colonizers of New Zealand

2023-07-12

COLUMBUS, Ohio – For the first time, researchers have developed a model to estimate how much energy the original colonizers of New Zealand expended to maintain their body temperatures on the cold, harrowing ocean journey from Southeast Asia. Results showed that people making the first voyages from Tahiti to New Zealand in sailing canoes would expend 3.3 to 4.8 times more energy on thermoregulation – the technical term for maintaining body temperature - than those making a trip of similar length to Hawaii. The ocean route to New Zealand required much more energy for thermoregulation ...

Could AI-powered robot “companions” combat human loneliness?

2023-07-12

AUKLAND, NZ and DURHAM, N.C. – Companion robots enhanced with artificial intelligence may one day help alleviate the loneliness epidemic, suggests a new report from researchers at Auckland, Duke, and Cornell Universities. Their report, appearing in the July 12 issue of Science Robotics, maps some of the ethical considerations for governments, policy makers, technologists, and clinicians, and urges stakeholders to come together to rapidly develop guidelines for trust, agency, engagement, and real-world efficacy. It also proposes a new way to measure whether a companion robot is helping someone. “Right now, all the evidence ...

Those who are smarter live longer

2023-07-12

Cognitive abilities not only vary among different species but also among individuals within the same species. It is expected that smarter individuals live longer, as they are likely to make better decisions, regarding habitat and food selection, predator avoidance, and infant care. To investigate the factors influencing life expectancy of wild gray mouse lemurs, researchers from the German Primate Center conducted a long-term study in Madagascar. They administered four different cognitive tests and two personality tests to 198 animals, while also measuring their weight and tracking their survival over several years. ...

Secrets of Egyptian painters revealed by chemistry

2023-07-12

Within the scope of a vast research program undertaken in coordination with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and the University of Liège, an international team—including scientists from the CNRS, Sorbonne University, and Université Grenoble Alpes—has revealed the artistic license exercised in two ancient Egyptian funerary paintings (dating to ~1,400 and ~1,200 BCE, respectively), as evident in newly discovered details invisible to the naked eye. Their findings are published in PLOS ONE (12 July). The language of ancient ...

A novel biosensor for detecting neurogenerative disease proteins

2023-07-12

By combining multiple advanced technologies into a single system, EPFL researchers have made a significant step forward in diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). This novel device is known as the ImmunoSEIRA sensor, a biosensing technology that enables the detection and identification of misfolded protein biomarkers associated with NDDs. The research, published today in Science Advances, also harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI) by employing neural networks to quantify disease ...

Eliminating public health scourge can also benefit agriculture

2023-07-12

Schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that causes organ damage and death, affected more than 250 million people worldwide in 2021, according to the World Health Organization. One of the world’s most burdensome neglected tropical diseases, schistosomiasis occurs when worms are transmitted from freshwater snails to humans. The snails thrive in water with plants and algae that proliferate in areas of agricultural runoff containing fertilizer. People become infected during routine activities in infested water. Researchers from the University of Notre Dame, in a study recently published in Nature, found that removing invasive vegetation at water access points in and around several ...