Present study described rumen microbiome of Indian cattle (Kankrej breed) to better understand the microbial diversity and largely unknown functional capacity of the rumen microbiome under different dietary treatments. Kankrej cattle were gradually adapted to a high-forage diet (four animals with dry forage and four with green forage) containing 50 % (K1), 75 % (K2) to 100 % (K3) forage, and remaining concentrate diet, each for 6 weeks followed by analysis of rumen fiber adherent and fiber-free metagenomic community by shotgun sequencing using ion torrent PGM platform and EBI-metagenomics annotation pipeline. Taxonomic analysis indicated that rumen microbiome was dominated by Bacteroidetes followed by Firmicutes, Fibrobacter, Proteobacteria, and Tenericutes. Functional analysis based on gene ontology classified all reads in total 157 categories based on their functional role in biological, molecular, and cellular component with abundance of genes associated with hydrolase activity, membrane, transport, transferase, and different metabolism (such as carbohydrate and protein). Statistical analysis using STAMP revealed significant differences (P < 0.05) between solid and liquid fraction of rumen (in 65 categories), between all three treatments (in 56 categories), and between green and dry roughage (17 categories). Diet treatment also exerted significant difference in environmental gene tags (EGTs) involved in metabolic pathways for production of volatile fatty acids. EGTs for butyrate production were abundant in K2, whereas EGTs for propionate production was abundant during K1. Principal component analysis also demonstrated that diet proportion, fraction of rumen, and type of forage affected rumen microbiome at taxonomic as well as functional level.

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Nephotettix virescens Distant and Sogatella furcifera (Horv) commonly known as Green leaf hopper (GLH) and White backed plant hopper (WBPH) respectively. These are the serious pests of kharif paddy all over the world causing extensive losses. The population dynamics of Green leaf hopper and white backed plant hopper for ten consecutive years (1994 to 2004) except for 1997 were correlated with the weather parameters like maximum and minimum temperature, rainfall, relative humidity and bright sunshine hours. The results revealed that the bright sunshine hours had a positive significant correlation (r=0.166) with the population dynamics of GLH. The correlation between WBPH peak population and bright sunshine hours also showed positive significantcorrelation (r=0.269), while maximum temperature, minimum temperature, rainfall and relative humidity showed non-significant effect on population build up of both GLH and WBPH. Green leaf hopper attained peak population during 43rdstandard meteorological week; whereas white backed plant hopper reached peak population during 39th standard meteorological week and decreased considerably thereafter.

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