Beyond compliance: harmonising research and husbandry practices to improve experimental reproducibility using fish models

Abstract

Reproducibility in animal research is impacted by the environment, by husbandry practices in the laboratory and by the animals' provenance. These factors, however, are often not adequately considered by researchers. A disconnect between researchers and animal care staff can result in inappropriate housing and husbandry decisions for scientific studies with those animals. This is especially the case for the research in neuro‐behaviour, epigenetics, and the impact of climate change, as heritable phenotypic, behavioural or physiological changes are known to result from the animals' environmental housing, husbandry, provenance and prior experience. This can lead to greater variation (even major differences) in data outcomes among studies, driving scientific uncertainties. Herein, we illustrate some of the endpoints measured in fish studies known to be intrinsically linked to the environment and husbandry conditions and assess the significance of housing and husbandry practice decisions for research adopting these endpoints for different fish species. We highlight the different priorities and challenges faced by researchers and animal care staff and how harmonising their activities and building greater understanding of how husbandry practices affect the fish will improve reproducibility in research outcomes. We furthermore illustrate how improving engagement between stakeholders, including regulatory bodies, can better underpin fish husbandry decisions and where researchers could help to drive best husbandry practices through their own research with fish models.

Professional quality of life in animal research personnel is linked to retention & job satisfaction: A mixed-methods cross-sectional survey on compassion fatigue in the USA

“…Again, these findings are supported by previous research that worse compassion fatigue is associated with personnel reporting increased animal stress and pain, less control of euthanasia, physical methods, and greater euthanasia distress [3,6,15]. These factors align with research suggesting that unique aspects of the research animal environment can contribute to compassion fatigue [31,32]. Interestingly, our quantitative analysis didn't reveal a direct association between either animal stress/pain or hands-on animal work with retention or job satisfaction.…”