Effects of feeding Mediterranean buffalo sorghum silage versus maize silage on the rumen microbiota and milk fatty acid content

Abstract

Sorghum presents a sustainable feedstock for Mediterranean buffaloes due to its reduced water and nitrogen requirements compared with maize, which is currently fed primarily. We investigated the effects of feeding sorghum as opposed to maize on Mediterranean buffalo rumen microbial diversity and milk fatty acid content. Four cannulated lactating Mediterranean buffalo cows were fed a basal diet for one month before switching either to maize or sorghum-silage based diets for a 3-month period. Buffaloes were then changed over to the contrasting diet for a further one month. Rumen and milk samples were collected at the end of each month. DGGE- and T-RFLP-based dendrograms generated from rumen samples did not show an effect of diet on rumen bacterial diversity. Milk samples also did not differ in terms of their fatty acid content post sorghum feeding as compared with maize feeding. Thus, sorghum provides an environmentally beneficial alternative to maize for feeding Mediterranean buffalo with little effect on rumen microbial diversity or milk fatty acid composition compared with maize feeding.

A Structural and Functional Elucidation of the Rumen Microbiome Influenced by Various Diets and Microenvironments

“…Various methods have been employed to study the rumen microbiome ranging from classical cultivation (Bryant, 1959 ; Hungate et al, 1964 ) to molecular approaches including next generation sequencing (Edwards et al, 2004 ; Mackie and Cann, 2005 ; Creevey et al, 2014 ) and functional metagenomics (Brulc et al, 2009 ; Hess et al, 2011 ; Ferrer et al, 2012 ) as well as metabolomics (Ametaj et al, 2010 ; Saleem et al, 2013 ). Furthermore, investigations of diet induced shifts in microbial community composition of the rumen in different contexts are numerous (Tajima et al, 2001 ; Fernando et al, 2010 ; Kong et al, 2010 ; Pitta et al, 2010 ; de Menezes et al, 2011 ; Ann Huws et al, 2012 ; Belanche et al, 2012 ; Carberry et al, 2012 ; Petri et al, 2013 ; Thoetkiattikul et al, 2013 ; Zhang et al, 2013 ; Lengowski et al, 2016 ) but generally rumen studies are restricted to nucleic acids-based approaches with limited functional insights.…”