Assessing the impact of rumen microbial communities on methane emissions and production traits in Holstein cows in a tropical climate

Abstract

The evaluation of how the gut microbiota affects both methane emissions and animal production is necessary in order to achieve methane mitigation without production losses. Toward this goal, the aim of this study was to correlate the rumen microbial communities (bacteria, archaea, and fungi) of high (HP), medium (MP), and low milk producing (LP), as well as dry (DC), Holstein dairy cows in an actual tropical production system with methane emissions and animal production traits. Overall, DC cows emitted more methane, followed by MP, HP and LP cows, although HP and LP cow emissions were similar. Using next-generation sequencing, it was found that bacteria affiliated with Christensenellaceae, Mogibacteriaceae, S24-7, Butyrivibrio, Schwartzia, and Treponema were negatively correlated with methane emissions and showed positive correlations with digestible dry matter intake (dDMI) and digestible organic matter intake (dOMI). Similar findings were observed for archaea in the genus Methanosphaera. The bacterial groups Coriobacteriaceae, RFP12, and Clostridium were negatively correlated with methane, but did not correlate with dDMI and dOMI. For anaerobic fungal communities, no significant correlations with methane or animal production traits were found. Based on these findings, it is suggested that manipulation of the abundances of these microbial taxa may be useful for modulating methane emissions without negatively affecting animal production.

Characterization of Anaerobic Rumen Fungal Community Composition in Yak, Tibetan Sheep and Small Tail Han Sheep Grazing on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

“…At the genus or higher level, we found the unidentified genus of Neocallimastigaceae was the most predominant regardless of animal species, which is consistent with previous study on dairy cows [30]. Recent studies on dairy cows have found that Caecomyces was the second most dominant genus [11,45], while in the present study, Piromyces was the second prevalent genus in the rumen, irrespective of animal species, but the relative abundance of genus Caecomyces was very low (0.76%). Previous study has reported that the genus Piromyces can produce cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic enzymes [46,47], while members (Caecomyces communis) belonging to genus Caecomyces had glycoside and polysaccharide hydrolase activity.…”

Effects of brewers’ spent grain protein hydrolysates on gas production, ruminal fermentation characteristics, microbial protein synthesis and microbial community in an artificial rumen fed a high grain diet

“…The genus Schwartzia are asaccharolytic and can ferment succinic acid to produce propionic acid [60]. It was reported that bacteria a liated with Schwartzia were negatively correlated with CH 4 emissions [61], which was contrary to our results that monensin reduced the RA of Schwartzia and CH 4 emissions.…”

Mining Novel Specific Rumen Bacteria to Enhance the Bioactive Function of Mulberry Leaf in Promoting Host Antioxidant Activity and Immunomodulatory

“…The mulberry leaf avonoid showed the ability in methane inhibiting in sheep [35]. Schwartzia was found to be negatively correlated with methane emissions [36]. Thus, the detected increased abundance of Schwartzia in the MS group from the current study and its positively correlated with antioxidant function might be due to the roles of Schwartzia in competing with methanogenic bacteria.…”