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Fecal microbiota of lambs fed purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea Vent.) and alfalfa (Medicago sativa)

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Abstract

The present study assessed the effect of purple prairie clover (PPC) and PPC condensed tannins (CT) on the fecal microbiota of lambs using high-throughput 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing. A total of 18 individual lambs were randomly divided into three groups and fed either green chop alfalfa (Alf), a 40:60 (DM basis; Mix) mixture of Alf and PPC, or Mix supplemented with polyethylene glycol (Mix-P) for 18 days. Fecal samples were collected on days 13 through 18 using digital rectal retrieval. The DNA of fecal samples was extracted and the microbial 16S rRNA gene amplicons were sequenced using 454 pyrosequencing. Regardless of diet, the bacterial community was dominated by Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes with many sequences unclassified at the genus level. Forage type and CT had no effect on the fecal microbial composition at the phylum level or on α-diversity. Compared to the Alf diet, the Mix diet reduced the relative abundance of Akkermansia (P = 0.03) and Asteroleplasma (P = 0.05). Fecal microbial populations in Alf and Mix-P clustered separately from each other when assessed using unweighted UniFrac (P < 0.05). These results indicate that PPC CT up to 36 g/kg DM in the diet had no major effect on fecal microbial flora at the phyla level and exerted only minor effects on the genera composition of fecal microbiota in lambs.

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Acknowledgements

This study was partially funded by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC). Qianqian Huang acknowledges the China Scholarship Council for awarding scholarship to conduct this research at Lethbridge Research and Development Centre (LeRDC) of AAFC. The authors thank the LeRDC sheep barn staff and B. Baker, D. Messenger, and F. van Herk for technical assistance. The LeRDC contribution number is 38716083.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225009, China

    Qianqian Huang & Guoqi Zhao

  2. Lethbridge Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, P.O. Box 3000, Lethbridge, AB, T1J 4B1, Canada

    Qianqian Huang, Devin B. Holman, Trevor Alexander, Long Jin, Zhongjun Xu, Tim A. McAllister, Surya Acharya & Yuxi Wang

  3. College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, China

    Qianqian Huang & Tianming Hu

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  1. Qianqian Huang
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  2. Devin B. Holman
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  5. Long Jin
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Correspondence to Yuxi Wang.

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Communicated by Shuang-Jiang Liu.

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Huang, Q., Holman, D.B., Alexander, T. et al. Fecal microbiota of lambs fed purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea Vent.) and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). Arch Microbiol 200, 137–145 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-017-1427-5

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