Structural adaptations of the bony framework of the pelvic limb in the rabbit

The study of the mechanism of adaptation of the musculoskeletal apparatus of rabbits to anthropogenically created living conditions remains an urgent problem of industrial rabbit breeding. Long-term exposure to factors limiting motor activity and suppression of ethological reactions is one of the predisposing factors to the development of osteoarthritis and myopathy in animals, which significantly reduces the economic efficiency of the industry. On the basis of a complex methodological approach, including macroscopic morphometry, review radiography, radiogrammetry, biomechanical study, statistical analysis of digital data, and morpho-biomechanical adaptations of the pelvic limb bony ossification in the Soviet Chinchilla rabbits of caged housing, the results are presented. As a morphological control, a closely related representative of hares - Rusak hare from the natural biocenosis - was chosen. The studies were carried out at the Department of Anatomy and Histology of Animals named after Professor A.F. Klimov of the K.I. Skryabin Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education of the Moscow State Automobile and Mechanical University, and biomechanical studies at the Scientific Medical Research Centre of Traumatology and Orthopaedics named after N.N. Priorov. The pelvic limbs of the Soviet Chinchilla rabbit (n=25) and Rusak hare (n=15) without signs of pathologies of the musculoskeletal system served as the material for the study. In the comparative analysis it was found that environmental conditions and locomotor specialization determine the nature of adaptive rearrangements of the long tubular bones of the pelvic limb in the studied representatives of hares. Structural and biomechanical adaptations of the pelvic limb bone framework of compensatory genesis have been established in the rabbit living in conditions of limited biodynamics.