The biochemical and microbiological characteristics of rumen fluid from cattle co-grazed with and without camels as compared to that from the foregut of camels

Abstract

Co-grazing is a common practice under many range conditions. The main advantage of co-grazing is to fully utilize the vegetation sources by taking advantage of the different preferences among animals towards plant species and parts. Hence, this study aimed to establish if co-grazing camels with cattle would lead to changes in the biochemical characteristics in the rumen contents of cattle, and result in different fermentation end products. Rumen contents were collected from two groups of animals at two different locations, the Runnymede Cattle Station at Richmond in northern Queensland, and the Meramist abattoir at Caboolture in Queensland. For the Richmond site, two groups of animals were sampled via stomach tube; cattle co-grazed with camels (n=6) and cattle grazed alone (n=6). For the Caboolture site, foregut contents from three groups of animals were sampled post mortem; camels co-grazed with cattle (n=6), cattle cograzed with camels (n=6), and camels grazed alone (n=6). The ratios of camel to cattle for the Richmond and the Caboolture sites were 1:49 and 1:14 respectively. These ratios were considered adequate for microbial transfer to occur.Foregut fluid samples from all animals were used to inoculate a pre-reduced medium containing Mitchell grass (Astrebla lappacea), Flinders grass (Iseilema spp.), or Lucerne hay (Medicago sativa). Measurements of gas production, volatile fatty acids, and dry matter digestibility were carried out following 48 or 96 h of in vitro incubation at 39 °C.Inocula from cattle co-grazed with camels from Richmond resulted in greater (P< 0.05) dry matter digestibility for Mitchell grass than cattle grazed alone and produced greater (P< 0.05) amounts of n-butyrate. On the other hand, inocula of camels co-grazed with cattle from Caboolture had higher in vitro dry matter digestibility for Mitchell grass and shared the potential for higher dry matter digestibility with cattle co-grazed with camels for lucerne hay. Camels co-grazed with cattle also produced more (P<0.05) n-Butyric acid in the Mitchell grass treatment compared to groups of camels grazed alone and cattle co-grazed with camels. The results from the biochemical analysis suggested that co-grazing may change the ecosystem of the foregut in a number of beneficial ways.A microbiological analysis was carried out to investigate the structure of the bacterial community in each group of animals with high throughput sequencing of 16s rRNA gene using 454 pyrosequencing technology. Using an open source software computational program provided by Quantitative Insights into Microbial Ecology (QIIME), not only was it possible to identify all microbial species within the foregut fluid samples but also it was possible for all data to be analysed and compared systematically.Further analyses to identify the different operational taxonomic units (OTUs) with a similarity threshold of 97% allowed the assessment of observed species (OTUs); species richness (Chao1); and phylogenetic diversity (PD) whole tree metric for each foregut fluid sa...

Foregut microbiology of the Arabian camel (Camelus dromedarius)

“…The culturing of bacteria was carried out using culture-dependent techniques in roll tubes, while identification was carried out using molecular techniques based on the 16S rRNA gene ( Ghali et al, 2004 , 2011 ). Moving on with the technology, further studies applied culture-independent molecular techniques, first by constructing clone libraries and later by using new generation sequencing technologies and genome analysis ( Samsudin et al, 2011 , 2012 , 2014 ; Suyub, 2014 , Seshadri et al, 2018 ; Rabee et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Earlier studies in our laboratory using high-throughput pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA provided us with detailed information on the microbiome diversity and complexity of Australian feral camels ( Camelus dromedarius ). Results of the taxonomic analyses yielded 21 bacterial phylotypes with Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes being the most abundant with 56.5% and 19.3%, respectively ( Suyub, 2014 ). Similarly, Bhatt et al (2013) reported a relative abundance rate of 55.5 for Bacteroidetes in handfed camels.…”

“…The effect of co-grazing camels with cattle on the bacterial community in both species has also been investigated ( Suyub 2014 ). Co-grazing altered the community structure in both species of animals, with phylogenetic diversity differences between camels grazed alone and camels co-grazed with cattle and cattle co-grazed with camels were observed ( Figure 2 ).…”

“… Bacterial distribution between cattle co-grazed with camels, camels grazed alone, and camels co-grazed with cattle evaluated at the family taxonomical level. Initial alphabet for each classification stands for P = phylum, C = class, O = order, and F = family, after Suyub (2014) . …”