Fluctuating asymmetry and animal welfare: How far are we? And how far should we go?

摘要

In the associated review, published in this issue of the Journal, Moller and Manning (2003) propose measures of developmental instability, primarily fluctuating asymmetry, for the assessment of animal welfare in agricultural practice. They see the advantages of fluctuating asymmetry in that it provides a single measure of organismal health that "can be used in all kinds of organisms including viruses, plants and animals" and comes with perfect symmetry as a built-in optimum.