Abstract Microbiota play an important role in total tract nutrient digestion, especially when fibrous diets are fed to pigs. This study aimed to use metagenomics to predict faecal nutrient digestibility in grower‐finisher pigs. The study design consisted of 160 three‐way crossbreed grower‐finisher pigs (80 female and 80 male) which were either fed a diet based on corn/soybean meal or a more fibrous diet based on wheat/barley/by‐products. On the day before slaughter, faecal samples were collected and used to determine faecal digestibility of dry matter, ash, organic matter, crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre and non‐starch polysaccharides. The faecal samples were also sequenced for the 16S hypervariable region of bacteria (V3/V4) to profile the faecal microbiome. With these data, we calculated the between‐animal variation in faecal nutrient digestibility associated with variation in the faecal microbiome, that is the “microbiability”. The microbiability values were significantly greater than zero for dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, crude fibre and non‐starch polysaccharides, ranging from 0.58 to 0.93, as well as for crude fat with a value of 0.37, but not significantly different from zero for ash. Using leave‐one‐out cross‐validation, we estimated the accuracy of predicting digestibility values of individual pigs based on their faecal microbiota composition. The accuracies of prediction for crude fat and ash digestibility were virtually 0, and for the other nutrients, the accuracies ranged from 0.42 to 0.63. In conclusion, the faecal microbiota composition gave high microbiability values for faecal digestibility of dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, crude fibre and non‐starch polysaccharides. The accuracies of prediction are relatively low if the interest is in precisely predicting faecal nutrient digestibility of individual pigs, but are promising from the perspective of ranking animals in a genetic selection context.

中文翻译：

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基于粪便微生物群组成预测生长肥育猪的营养消化率

摘要 微生物群在全道营养消化中发挥着重要作用，尤其是当猪饲喂纤维日粮时。本研究旨在使用宏基因组学来预测生长肥育猪的粪便营养消化率。研究设计由 160 头三向杂交育肥猪（80 头雌性和 80 头雄性）组成，它们被饲喂以玉米/豆粕为基础的日粮或以小麦/大麦/副产品为基础的纤维含量更高的日粮。屠宰前一天采集粪便样品，用于测定粪便干物质、灰分、有机物、粗蛋白、粗脂肪、粗纤维和非淀粉多糖的消化率。粪便样本还对细菌的 16S 高变区 (V3/V4) 进行了测序，以分析粪便微生物组。有了这些数据，我们计算了与粪便微生物组变异相关的粪便养分消化率的动物间变异，即“微生物能力”。干物质、有机质、粗蛋白、粗纤维和非淀粉多糖的微生物值均显着大于零，范围为 0.58 至 0.93，以及粗脂肪的值为 0.37，但与零无显着差异为灰。使用留一法交叉验证，我们估计了基于粪便微生物群组成预测个体猪消化率值的准确性。粗脂肪和灰分消化率的预测精度几乎为0，而其他营养素的预测精度为0.42至0.63。综上所述，粪便微生物群组成对粪便的干物质、有机物质、粗蛋白、粗纤维和非淀粉多糖的消化率给出了高的微生物值。如果感兴趣的是精确预测个体猪的粪便营养消化率，则预测的准确性相对较低，但从在遗传选择背景下对动物进行排名的角度来看，预测的准确性是有希望的。