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Nature Research, Scientific Reports, 1(5), 2015

DOI: 10.1038/srep14567

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Rumen microbial community composition varies with diet and host, but a core microbiome is found across a wide geographical range

Journal article published in 2015 by Jonathan van Hamme, Woulter van Hoven, Alexandre B. de Menezes, Rodrigo de la Barra, William L. S. dos Reis, Peter van Adrichem, Wayne Young, Alexandre Vieira Chaves, Mi Zhou, Hua Wei Zhou, Cai Xia Zou, Zorica Stojanović-Radić, Blaz Stres, Xuezhao Sun, Jeffery Swartz and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

AbstractRuminant livestock are important sources of human food and global greenhouse gas emissions. Feed degradation and methane formation by ruminants rely on metabolic interactions between rumen microbes and affect ruminant productivity. Rumen and camelid foregut microbial community composition was determined in 742 samples from 32 animal species and 35 countries, to estimate if this was influenced by diet, host species, or geography. Similar bacteria and archaea dominated in nearly all samples, while protozoal communities were more variable. The dominant bacteria are poorly characterised, but the methanogenic archaea are better known and highly conserved across the world. This universality and limited diversity could make it possible to mitigate methane emissions by developing strategies that target the few dominant methanogens. Differences in microbial community compositions were predominantly attributable to diet, with the host being less influential. There were few strong co-occurrence patterns between microbes, suggesting that major metabolic interactions are non-selective rather than specific.