Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.
Western Institute for Food Safety and Security, University of California, Davis, California, USA.
BMC Microbiol. 2022 May 14;22(1):132. doi: 10.1186/s12866-022-02549-3.
Microbiota play important roles in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of dairy cattle as the communities are responsible for host health, growth, and production performance. However, a systematic characterization and comparison of microbial communities in the GIT of cattle housed in different management units on a modern dairy farm are still lacking. We used 16S rRNA gene sequencing to evaluate the fecal bacterial communities of 90 dairy cattle housed in 12 distinctly defined management units on a modern dairy farm.
We found that cattle from management units 5, 6, 8, and 9 had similar bacterial communities while the other units showed varying levels of differences. Hutch calves had a dramatically different bacterial community than adult cattle, with at least 10 genera exclusively detected in their samples but not in non-neonatal cattle. Moreover, we compared fecal bacteria of cattle from every pair of the management units and detailed the number and relative abundance of the significantly differential genera. Lastly, we identified 181 pairs of strongly correlated taxa in the community, showing possible synergistic or antagonistic relationships.
This study assesses the fecal microbiota of cattle from 12 distinctly defined management units along the production line on a California dairy farm. The results highlight the similarities and differences of fecal microbiota between cattle from each pair of the management units. Especially, the data indicate that the newborn calves host very different gut bacterial communities than non-neonatal cattle, while non-neonatal cattle adopt one of the two distinct types of gut bacterial communities with subtle differences among the management units. The gut microbial communities of dairy cattle change dramatically in bacterial abundances at different taxonomic levels along the production line. The findings provide a reference for research and practice in modern dairy farm management.
微生物群在奶牛的胃肠道（GIT）中发挥着重要作用，因为这些群落负责宿主的健康、生长和生产性能。然而，对于现代奶牛场不同管理单元中牛的胃肠道微生物群落的系统特征描述和比较仍缺乏研究。我们使用 16S rRNA 基因测序来评估 90 头奶牛的粪便细菌群落，这些奶牛分别来自现代奶牛场 12 个截然不同的管理单元。
我们发现，来自管理单元 5、6、8 和 9 的奶牛具有相似的细菌群落，而其他单元则表现出不同程度的差异。小牛的粪便细菌群落与成年牛有明显不同，至少有 10 个属仅在其样本中检测到，而不在非新生牛中检测到。此外，我们比较了每对管理单元中牛的粪便细菌，并详细列出了差异显著的属的数量和相对丰度。最后，我们确定了群落中 181 对强烈相关的分类群，显示出可能的协同或拮抗关系。
本研究评估了加利福尼亚州一个奶牛场沿生产线的 12 个截然不同的管理单元中牛的粪便微生物群。结果突出了来自每个管理单元的牛的粪便微生物群之间的相似性和差异性。特别是，数据表明新生小牛的肠道细菌群落与非新生牛非常不同，而非新生牛则采用两种不同类型的肠道细菌群落之一，且在管理单元之间存在细微差异。奶牛的肠道微生物群落沿着生产线在不同分类水平上的细菌丰度发生了显著变化。研究结果为现代奶牛场管理的研究和实践提供了参考。
