Microbiota Composition of Mucosa and Interactions between the Microbes of the Different Gut Segments Could Be a Factor to Modulate the Growth Rate of Broiler Chickens.

The study reported here aimed to determine whether correlations can be found between the intestinal segment-related microbiota composition and the different growing intensities of broiler chickens. The bacterial community structures of three intestinal segments (jejunum chymus-JC, jejunum mucosa-JM, caecum chymus-CC) from broiler chickens with low body weight (LBW) and high body weight (HBW) were investigated. Similar to the previous results in most cases, significant differences were found in the bacteriota diversity and composition between the different sampling places. However, fewer body weight (BW)-related differences were detected. In the JM of the HBW birds, the / ratio (B/F) was also higher. At the genus level significant differences were observed between the BW groups in the relative abundance of , mainly in the JC; and , mainly in the JM; and , , and in the CC. These genera and others (e.g., and in the JM; , -, and in the CC) showed a close correlation with BW. The co-occurrence interaction results in the JC revealed a correlation between the genera of (mainly with ) and classes with different patterns in the two BW groups. In the JM of LBW birds, two co-occurring communities were found that were not identifiable in HBW chickens and their members belonged to the families of and . In the frame of the co-occurrence evaluation between the jejunal content and mucosa, the two genera ( and in the JC were found to have a significant positive correlation with other genera of the JM only in LBW chickens.