The limited understanding of the interaction between rearing environment of the growing pig and the pig’s microbial community impedes efforts to identify the optimal housing system to maximize animal health and production. Accordingly, we characterized the impact of housing complexity on shaping the respiratory and gut microbiota of growing pig. A total of 175 weaned pigs from 25 litters were randomly assigned within liter to either simple slatted-floor (S) or complex straw-based rearing ecosystem (C). Beside the floor swabs samples, fecal swabs and mucosal scraping samples from bronchus, ileum, and colon were collected approximately 164 days post-weaning at the time of slaughter. The S ecosystem seems to increase the α-diversity of respiratory and gut microbiota. Moreover, the C-raised pigs showed 35.4, 89.2, and 60.0% reduction in the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio than the S-raised pigs at bronchus, ileum, and colon, respectively. The unfavorable taxa Psychrobacter, Corynebacterium, Actinobacteria, and Neisseria were the signature taxa of C environment-associated microbial community. Therefore, the microbiota of S-raised pigs seems to show higher density of the most essential and beneficial taxa than the C-raised pigs. We preliminarily conclude that increasing the physical complexity of rearing environment seems to provide suboptimal conditions for establishing a healthy microbial community in the growing pigs.

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In parallel with growing concerns, the concentration of trace organic compounds (TOrCs) has increased in wastewater streams as more people rely on these products for everyday uses. In addition, as nutrient total maximum daily loads continue to be developed for receiving waters, many wastewater treatment plants are facing more stringent limits, especially for phosphorus removal. The objective of this study was therefore to evaluate the performance of sand ballasted flocculation in combination with powdered activated carbon (PAC) for the removal of both a series of TOrCs and phosphorus. A pilot unit of Actiflo ® Carb was installed at the South Shore Water Reclamation Facility owned by Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and managed by Veolia Water North America. This study received financial support from Water Environment Research Federation and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.

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