During her STSM in October 2024 at the Department of Animal Science, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, in Domžale, Slovenia, Lucie Přibylová had the opportunity to contribute to an intriguing research project under the supervision of Manja Zupan Šemrov. The focus of the study was to analyze anatomical and kinematic data of Lipizzan horses to understand how the type of work they perform impacts their welfare, specifically exploring how kinematics in relation to anatomy can provide insights into the positive experiences of working horses.
Throughout her 30-day internship, Lucie played an integral role in assisting with the preparation of the scientific manuscript titled What can kinematics in relation to anatomy tell us about the positive experience of working horses?. She contributed to the introduction, methodology, and results sections of the paper. In the introduction, Lucie conducted an in-depth literature review, selected relevant studies and organized the citations using the Zotero reference management software. In the methodology section, she helped draft the text and created figures that illustrated the anatomical parts of the horses being measured during the study. These visuals were essential in explaining the research design to the readers. In the results section, Lucie worked on preparing tables that presented correlations between the horses’ kinematic data and the type of work they performed. The matrices she created were crucial for illustrating key findings from the data and highlighting important relationships.
This internship provided her with valuable experience in data analysis, scientific writing, and manuscript preparation and most importantly to find new colleagues and friends for future collaboration. As Slovenia is a beautiful country, Lucie also had the opportunity to explore nature. It also deepened her understanding of animal welfare research and the role of biomechanics in assessing the welfare of working animals.
