The persistence of bacterial and methanogenic archaeal communities residing in the rumen of young lambs

David R Yáñez-Ruiz, Beatriz Macías, Eric Pinloche, Charles J Newbold

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71 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The aim of this experiment was to study the persistence in time of bacterial and methanogenic archaeal communities that establish in the rumen of lambs fed two different diets at weaning. Twenty ewes with single lambs were used in two phases. In phase I, 10 lambs had access only to grass hay (H group). The other 10 lambs had free access to concentrate and grass hay (C group). After 20 weeks, five lambs from each group were slaughtered and rumen samples were kept for analysis. In phase II, the remaining lambs were grouped together and fed grass plus concentrate for 4 months and then slaughtered, and rumen samples were collected for analysis. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis showed a different bacterial and methanogen population established in the rumen of H and C lambs in phase I. These differences disappeared for methanogens after both groups were fed the same diet for 4 months; however, the total bacterial community remained different for the H and C samples. Our results suggest that some of the differences in the microbial populations that establish in animals fed different diets at weaning persist in the long term, which provides the possibility of programming the microbial populations in the adult animal.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)272-8
Number of pages7
JournalFEMS Microbiology Ecology
Volume72
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPrint publication - May 2010
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Animals
  • Archaea/genetics
  • Bacteria/genetics
  • DNA, Archaeal/genetics
  • DNA, Bacterial/genetics
  • Diet
  • Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length
  • Rumen/microbiology
  • Sheep, Domestic/microbiology
  • Time Factors

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