Abstract
Ruminal microorganisms play a pivotal role in cattle nutrition. The discovery of the main microbes or of a microbial community responsible for enhancing the gain of weight in beef cattle might be used in therapeutic approaches to increase animal performance and cause less environmental damages. Here, we examined the differences in bacterial and fungal composition of rumen samples of Braford heifers raised in natural grassland of the Pampa Biome in Brazil. We aimed to detect microbial patterns in the rumen that could be correlated with the gain of weight. We hypothesized that microorganisms important to digestion process are increased in animals with a higher gain of weight. The gain of weight of seventeen healthy animals was monitored for 60 days. Ruminal samples were obtained and the 16S and ITS1 genes were amplified and sequenced to identify the closest microbial relatives within the microbial communities. A predictive model based on microbes responsible for the gain of weight was build and further tested using the entire dataset., The main differential abundant microbes between groups included the bacterial taxa RFN20, Prevotella, Anaeroplasma and RF16 and the fungal taxa Aureobasidium, Cryptococcus, Sarocladium, Pleosporales and Tremellales. The predictive model detected some of these taxa associated with animals with the high gain of weight group, most of them being organisms that have been correlated to the production of substances that improve the ruminal digestion process. These findings provide new insights about cattle nutrition and suggest the use of these microbes to improve beef cattle breeding.
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Funding
Funding was provided by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Grant No. 001) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (Grant No. 434379/2016-6).
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Conceptualization, ASF, DBD, and LFWR; methodology, ASF, DBD and BMT; validation, DBD; formal analysis, ASF and LFWR; investigation, ASF, DBD and BMT; resources, DBD and LFWR; data curation, ASF and LFWR; writing—original draft preparation, ASF and DBD; writing—review and editing, ASF, DBD and LFWR; visualization, BMT; supervision, LFWR; project administration, DBD and LFWR; funding acquisition, DBD and LFWR.
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Supplementary Figure S1
Overall comparisons of bacterial and fungal communities respectively at OTU level based on principal coordinates analysis (PCoA), depicting clusters of bacterial communities in 17 samples each from the Higher (red), Lower (blue) and Middle (green) gain of weight groups. Each point represents a microbial community in a sample. Points closer to each other represent similar microbial communities, while points farther from each other represent dissimilar microbial communities. The statistical significance of sample groupings was tested with the Adonis function using distance matrices as primary input. R2 values were 0.140 (p = 0.052) for Bacteria and 0.198 (p = 0.195) for Fungi (TIFF 320 kb)
Supplementary Figure S2
Centered log ratio transformed abundance of all bacterial phyla present in ruminal samples from bovines with Higher ADG (yellow) and Lower ADG (blue). Differences were tested with the ALDEx package. No significant difference between groups was found (effect size < 1, p value > 0.1). Note that negative clr values indicate very low abundance (TIFF 1909 kb)
Supplementary Figure S3
Centered log ratio transformed abundance of all fungal phyla present in ruminal samples from bovines with Higher ADG (yellow) and Lower ADG (blue). Differences were tested with the ALDEx package. No significant difference between groups was found (effect size < 1, p value > 0.1). Note that negative clr values indicate very low abundance (TIFF 844 kb)
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de Freitas, A.S., de David, D.B., Takagaki, B.M. et al. Microbial patterns in rumen are associated with gain of weight in beef cattle. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 113, 1299–1312 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-020-01440-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-020-01440-3