Characterization of Rumen Microbiota of Two Sheep Breeds Supplemented With Direct-Fed Lactic Acid Bacteria

Abstract

Supplementation of direct-fed microbials into ruminants' nutrition has shown great potential in manipulating rumen fermentation and enhancing productive animal performance. However, little is known about rumen microbial composition and diversity of Damara and Meatmaster sheep, breeds indigenous to South Africa. The study aimed at exploring and comparing the rumen microbiomes of two breeds with different feeding treatments as follows: no antibiotic, no probiotics (T1), only potential probiotic (T2), only potential probiotic (T3), the combination of potential probiotics (T4), antibiotic (T5); using a metagenomic approach. The results showed that based on the Shannon index, the microbial diversity of Damara was higher (p < 0.05) than Meatmaster, while treatment T4 was higher than treatment T1 (p < 0.05). The principal coordinate analysis showed no significant difference among treatments, while there were significant dissimilarities between sheep breeds and sample-day (p < 0.05). Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) displayed the dispersion of microbial communities among treatments, where negative control (T1) was distinct from other treatments. Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were the most abundant microbial phyla across treatments for both breeds. Negative control and the combination of potential probiotics showed lower proportions of Proteobacteria compared to other treatments. At the genus level, Prevotella and Clostridium were abundant across all treatments, while Pseudomonas was abundant only in T2, T3, and T5. In all treatments, Fibrobacter was detected after the feeding trials, while it was not detected in most treatments before trials. The results revealed that the rumen microbiome's structure and abundance were slightly altered by administering lactic acid as a putative probiotic.

Effects of Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Enterococcus faecalis Supplementation as Direct-Fed Microbials on Rumen Microbiota of Boer and Speckled Goat Breeds

“…These findings show that the host genotype plays a significant role in maintaining the rumen microbial structure and functions. The results are in accordance with other studies that investigated rumen microbial diversity in cows [29,30], sheep [25,31] and goat [32].…”

Effects of Management, Dietary Intake, and Genotype on Rumen Morphology, Fermentation, and Microbiota, and on Meat Quality in Yaks and Cattle

“…In this study, the relative abundance of Proteobacteria, which has little, if any, and cellulolytic activity ( 44 ) tended to be greater in FC than in GY and FY. Sheep breeds were reported to affect the abundance of Proteobacteria, which consists mostly of pathogenic bacteria ( 45 ). Therefore, the low abundance of Proteobacteria in the two yak groups indicates that this bacterial phylum is affected by genotype, as it was in sheep, and that yaks have a stronger ability to resist pathogens than cattle.…”

Impact of Probiotics on Dairy Production Efficiency

“…Over the years numerous bacteria and fungi have been identified as probiotics ( Table 1 ) ( Choct, 2009 ; Puniya et al, 2015 ; Markowiak and Ślizewska, 2018 ; Zommiti and Ferchichi, 2021 ). Supplementation with probiotics aids in maintaining gut microflora homeostasis, which improves feed conversion efficiency ultimately resulting in increased milk and meat production ( Jinturkar et al, 2009 ; Maake et al, 2021 ; Mani et al, 2021 ). Furthermore, probiotics have also been reported to reduce levels of stress-related markers, such as cortisol ( Zhang et al, 2016 ).…”