REVIEW article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Behavior and Welfare
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Water Buffalo: Sustainability, Health, Behavior, Animal Welfare and ProductionView all 5 articles
Effects of natural and artificial shade on behavior, physiology, and productivity in water buffalo: a narrative review
Provisionally accepted
Daniel Mota-Rojas1*
Lydia Lanzoni2
Arthur Fernandes Bettencourt3
Adriana Domínguez-Oliva1
Alfonso J. Chay-Canul4
Adolfo Álvarez Macías1
Andrea Bragaglio5
Ismael Hernández Avalos6
Vivian Fischer7
Eleonora Nannoni8
Ayman Hassan Abd El-Aziz9
PATRICIA MORA-MEDINA6Julio Martínez-Burnes10
Adriana Olmos-Hernández11
Fabiola Torres-Bernal1
Nancy José-Pérez1
Vittoria Lucia Barile12- 1Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico City, Mexico
- 2Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy
- 3Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, Brazil
- 4Universidad Juarez Autonoma de Tabasco, Villahermosa, Mexico
- 5CREA Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Monterotondo, Italy
- 6Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Facultad de Estudios Superiores Cuautitlan, Cuautitlán Izcalli, Mexico
- 7Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
- 8Universita degli Studi di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- 9Damanhour University, Damanhour, Egypt
- 10Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas, Ciudad Victoria, Mexico
- 11Instituto Nacional de Rehabilitacion Luis Guillermo Ibarra Ibarra, Mexico City, Mexico
- 12CREA Centro di ricerca Zootecnia e Acquacoltura Sede di Monterotondo, Monterotondo, Italy
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Although water buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) are a species known for their adaptability to different environments, their anatomical characteristics make them susceptible to heat stress in hot-humid climate conditions. In productive systems, the provision of natural or artificial shade is an alternative This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article to mitigate the negative effects of heat stress and maintain the animals' thermal balance. However, most of the research addressing shade provision is focused on Bos taurus and Bos indicus species. Thus, the present review aims to discuss the effects of providing natural or artificial shade on physiological, behavioral, and productive parameters of water buffalo as a management strategy to mitigate thermal stress. Some studies in cattle will be used to compare and analyze the effect of shade on animal welfare.
Keywords: Bubalus bubalis, Roof, Shade provision, Silvopastoral systems, Tree shade
Received: 22 Oct 2025; Accepted: 10 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Mota-Rojas, Lanzoni, Fernandes Bettencourt, Domínguez-Oliva, Chay-Canul, Álvarez Macías, Bragaglio, Hernández Avalos, Fischer, Nannoni, Abd El-Aziz, MORA-MEDINA, Martínez-Burnes, Olmos-Hernández, Torres-Bernal, José-Pérez and Barile. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Daniel Mota-Rojas
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