Ethology & Animal Welfare research in Brazil

. Mankind has always tried to understand the behavior of animals and also to establish close contact with wildlife aiming to domesticate, to utilize or to enjoy the company of other animals. Nowadays the study of animal behavior – ethology – is a science in this own right and animal welfare is seen as a growing area of interest among scientists of different backgrounds, bringing together ethology, veterinary, zoology, psychology, and husbandry under the same framework of common interests. Here, we surveyed PubMed database using two keywords, “ethology” and “animal welfare”, which encompassed the period from 1981 to 2017. Also we have consulted the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – i.e. “Diretório de Grupos do Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa (CNPq)” – aiming to disclose how many research groups there are working within the Animal Welfare realm, and where they are geographically localized. We found 156 articles addressing “Ethology” and “Animal Welfare”, an average of 7.7±4.2 articles per year from 2003 to 2017. 55 groups corresponding to 36.9% of the total are studying “Animal Welfare”. They are localized in 70% of the Brazilian states, mostly in the South and in the Northeast regions of the country. The presence of those groups allow us to be optimistic regarding the future of the Animal Welfare field in Brazil.


Introduction
Ethology in Brazil started around 1960 as a scientific and academic endeavor at the Institute of Psychology, campus SP, University of São Paulo (Fuchs, 1995;Ades, 2010;Otta et al., 2013). Since its beginning the study of animal behavior has received contributions from many areas, as it progressed to incorporate a large diversity of approaches (Magrini et al., 2016). Among them "Animal Welfare", herein considered as a branch of the broad area "Applied Ethology" -which also includes "Conservation"has always played a major role. The first meeting of ethologists in Brazil, happened in 1983. It was termed I Encontro Paulista de Etologia -i.e. São Paulo Ethology Meeting -heading by Prof. Dr. Mateus J. R. da Costa Paranhos (Costa, 1992), a young researcher at that time, and nowadays an important and consolidated name in the Animal Welfare scenario.
Recently, a survey of doctoral dissertations and master theses of Ethology presented in Brazil during five years, from 2010 to 2014, showed how strong the field that embraces Animal Welfare is. Applied Ethology was the theme of 27% of master theses; and 44 theses (i.e. 8%) of a total of 531 were related to Animal Welfare stricto sensu. Applied Ethology was the topic of 20% of doctoral dissertations of a total of 295, and Animal Welfare was the main subject of 18, corresponding to 6% of total (Spinelli de . These dissertations and theses were developed at different Graduate Programs all over Brazil, among a group of seven more animal behavior subareas (see .
Herein our contribution is to open a window at the international scenario of publications along the last decades regarding the binominal terms "ethology" and "animal welfare", having PubMed database as a reference. Also, we intent to disclose how many research groups are in Brazil, working within the Animal Welfare realm, and where they are geographically localized, complementing a previous survey regarding animal behavior groups in Brazil .
Animal Welfare is a priority topic either when wild populations are concerned -especially when confined in parks, zoos or laboratory facilities -or when livestock and domestic animals are the main subject. Knowing who the expertise are, and where they are mean an important step to create ties and increase the influence of the field in the Brazilian and International scientific scenario. Animal Welfare has implications regarding ethics and animal rights at a time when former human attributes, such as "consciousness" are been extended to other animals (see The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, 2012).

Material And Methods
Defining what we mean by "Animal Welfare" "Animal Welfare" is considered here as a subarea of Applied Ethology Spinelli de Oliveira & .9 Magrini, 2015). Correlated areas such as "Applied Ethology" stricto sensu and "Conservation" were also accessed when counting the number of research groups working on these subjects, and these subareas sometimes are pooled for the sake of simplification.  A total of 149 research groups are listed at the Brazilian Society of Ethology site: "Animal Welfare" corresponding to 55 groups (36.9% of the total), "Applied Ethology stricto sensu" to 6 groups (1.5%), "Conservation" to 11 groups (7.4%), and the remaining 77 research groups belong to the other subareas of Ethology corresponding to 51.7% of the total (Figure 2). Those numbers are even more expressive of the importance of "Animal Welfare" in Brazil when we compare those values to the ones referring to dissertations and theses , that were more modest.

The PubMed database
Brazil has such a large diversity of Biomes and native species, mostly hardly known, and it is also an important country when livestock is concerned (Hoff & Silva, 2014), so this assess indicates a pathway for the expansion of knowledge of topics of general interest and of practical application in our country. Where they are?
Research groups studying Animal Welfare and correlated areas are present in the majority of the Brazilian Federative Units (18 states plus the Federal District, corresponding to 70% of total), and in all regions of Brazil (Figure 3). The largest number is found in the South region (n= 24 groups, corresponding to 33% of the total), followed by the Northeast region, with 18 groups, 25% of the total. The Southeast, the Central West, and the North regions, in a decreasing order, complete the scenario.   When one considers the states where the research groups of "Animal Welfare" are localized a clearer picture emerges (Table 1). Pernambuco, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná States have 50% of all research groups working with "Animal Welfare" in Brazil. Although it is not possible to establish a cause-effect relationship, it is worthwhile to consider the importance of those states when the presence of livestock is concerned, especially Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul States.
The three southern states of Brazil concentrated nearly 60 percent of hog production in Brazil (Rubio et al., 2017). According to Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistic ("Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística"), IBGE (2016) Paraná stands out as being responsible for 17.2% of the national production. The Central-West region holds the first place when Brazilian bovine livestock is concerned (34.4% of total), but the South region produces 12.45 billion liters of milk per year or 37.0% of the national production (Ibge, 2016). Regarding ovine livestock, the Northeast region comes in the first place (63.0% of the national production), and the South region comes in second place holding 23.9% of the total, but 98.0% of all wool national production. Poultry is mainly a South (45.3% of total national production) and a Southeast business (37.8% of total). Paraná State alone produces 24.8% of the Brazilian poultry while the Southeast region produces 43.5% of the national output