Tiny but mighty: The role of the rumen microbes in livestock production

Cammack, K. M.; Austin, Kathy J.; Lamberson, W. R.; Conant, Gavin C.; Cunningham, Hannah

doi:10.1093/jas/skx053

Cited by 33 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 131 publications

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“…Calves fed FSBM13 had a greater proportion of Prevotella ruminicola in the rumen fluid. This proteolytic bacterium effectively consumes NH 3 -N, peptides and, to a lesser degree, uses AAs to produce microbial proteins and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) 51,52 . The PCA showed that Prevotella ruminicola was positively associated with the concentration of NH 3 -N in rumen.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fermented soybean meal affects the ruminal fermentation and the abundance of selected bacterial species in Holstein calves: a multilevel analysis

Feizi

Zad

Jalali

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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The effect of soybean meal (SBM) replacement with fermented SBM (FSBM) on ruminal fermentation and bacterial abundance in Holstein calves was investigated in this study. Thirty nine calves were randomized to: (1) control: 27% SBM + 0% FSBM (FSBM0, n = 13); (2) 18% SBM + 9% FSBM (FSBM9, n = 13); and (3) 13.5% SBM + 13.5% FSBM (FSBM13, n = 13). SBM contained a greater amount of large peptides containing 3 to 10 amino acids (AAs), while FSBM had a greater amount of ammonia nitrogen (NH 3-N), free AAs, and small peptides containing 2 to 3 AAs. The calves fed FSBM13 had the lowest acetic acid, NH 3-N, and the ratio of acetate to propionate, with the greatest concentration of caproic acid, valeric acid and isovaleric acid in ruminal fluid. Compared to those fed FSBM9 or FSBM13, the calves fed FSBM0 had the greatest proportion of Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens and Ruminococcus albus in rumen fluid. However, the ruminal abundance of Prevotella ruminicola in calves fed FSBM13 was greater than in calves fed FSBM0. Network analysis showed that the abundance of the Ruminococcus albus was associated with large peptides, and butyric acid was correlated with small peptide. Taken together, our findings suggest that FSBM may have the potential to boost calf performance by changing the fermentation products and the relative abundance of some members of the bacterial community in the rumen. The calf starts its life with a physically and metabolically undeveloped rumen. Calves generally experience significant changes not only in the development of their rumen, but also in the rumen bacterial composition and community 1. This, in turn, enables calves to digest dry feeds for their growth needs, impacting productivity and future milk production capacity 1,2. Fibrolytic bacteria are important for the rapid anatomical and physiological growth of rumen, as the newborn calf moves from a liquid diet (i.e., milk) to a solid diet, such as grass and hay 3. Rumen microbes are classified into various functional groups, for example cellulolytic, amylolytic and proteolytic bacteria species 4. These organisms metabolize feed components and other microbial products 5. The rumen microbial community and the functional development of the stomach are affected by diets 4. For example, when forages are fed to ruminants, Bacteroidales and Ruminococcaceae become dominant 4. On the other hand, it is known that animals fed high-concentrate diets have more Prevotella and Succinivibrionaceae in their rumen fluid 4,6-8. Therefore, diets fed to animals can alter the relative abundance of bacteria and the profile of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) in the rumen 1,4. This, in turn, affects the evolution of the early ruminal development and microbiota 9 .

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fermented soybean meal affects the ruminal fermentation and the abundance of selected bacterial species in Holstein calves: a multilevel analysis

Feizi

Zad

Jalali

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Domesticated ruminants such as cattle ( Bos taurus ), sheep ( Ovis aries ), goats ( Capra aegagrus ), and yaks ( Bos grunniens ) form an important segment of agriculture around the world with over 3.5 billion domesticated ruminants providing a source of high-quality animal protein in the form of meat and dairy products ( Cammack et al, 2018 ). Non-domesticated ruminants also fill essential ecological niches as primary consumers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rumen Epithelial Communities Share a Core Bacterial Microbiota: A Meta-Analysis of 16S rRNA Gene Illumina MiSeq Sequencing Datasets

2021

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In this meta-analysis, 17 rumen epithelial 16S rRNA gene Illumina MiSeq amplicon sequencing data sets were analyzed to identify a core rumen epithelial microbiota and core rumen epithelial OTUs shared between the different studies included. Sequences were quality-filtered and screened for chimeric sequences before performing closed-reference 97% OTU clustering, and de novo 97% OTU clustering. Closed-reference OTU clustering identified the core rumen epithelial OTUs, defined as any OTU present in ≥ 80% of the samples, while the de novo data was randomly subsampled to 10,000 reads per sample to generate phylum- and genus-level distributions and beta diversity metrics. 57 core rumen epithelial OTUs were identified including metabolically important taxa such as Ruminococcus, Butyrivibrio, and other Lachnospiraceae, as well as sulfate-reducing bacteria Desulfobulbus and Desulfovibrio. Two Betaproteobacteria OTUs (Neisseriaceae and Burkholderiaceae) were core rumen epithelial OTUs, in contrast to rumen content where previous literature indicates they are rarely found. Two core OTUs were identified as the methanogenic archaea Methanobrevibacter and Methanomethylophilaceae. These core OTUs are consistently present across the many variables between studies which include different host species, geographic region, diet, age, farm management practice, time of year, hypervariable region sequenced, and more. When considering only cattle samples, the number of core rumen epithelial OTUs expands to 147, highlighting the increased similarity within host species despite geographical location and other variables. De novo OTU clustering revealed highly similar rumen epithelial communities, predominated by Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria at the phylum level which comprised 79.7% of subsampled sequences. The 15 most abundant genera represented an average of 54.5% of sequences in each individual study. These abundant taxa broadly overlap with the core rumen epithelial OTUs, with the exception of Prevotellaceae which were abundant, but not identified within the core OTUs. Our results describe the core and abundant bacteria found in the rumen epithelial environment and will serve as a basis to better understand the composition and function of rumen epithelial communities.

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“…In the rumen, protozoa, bacteria, and fungi communities ferment enzymatically structural carbohydrates, starch, and proteins. During the fermentation process, volatile fatty acids (VFA), CO 2 , and metabolic H 2 are produced and used by methanogenic archaea for the synthesis of CH 4 ( 7 ). Methanogenic archaea fluctuate between 10 7 and 10 9 cells per milliliter of rumen fluid ( 29 ) and approximately two thirds belong to the genus Methanobrevibacter and Methanosarcina ( 30 ) representing 1–4% of the microbial biomass.…”

Section: Methane Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A fact which constrains anaerobic fermentation of organic matter and induces long retention times of digesta in the reticulo-rumen (4), leading to high emissions of enteric CH 4 (5). Under those circumstances, it has been claimed that secondary metabolites contained in a wide variety of plants may mitigate CH 4 emissions through a variety of mechanisms involving the rumen microbiome (6)(7)(8). Although secondary metabolites may be usually considered beneficial, the concentration of certain ergot alkaloids such as ergosine and ergocristine in pastures may lead to toxicity under certain circumstances in grazing animals such as sheep and horses (9).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%