Adapting the feed, the animal and the feeding techniques to improve the efficiency and sustainability of monogastric livestock production systems
Adapting the feed, the animal and the feeding techniques to improve the efficiency and sustainability of monogastric livestock production systems

Unravelling the effects of restricted and ad libitum diets on intestinal microbiota in rabbits

Authors: 
Velasco M., Viñas, M., Piles M., Sánchez J.P.
Publication date: 
17 October 2016
Full title: 
Unravelling the effects of restricted and ad libitum diets on intestinal microbiota in rabbits
Publishing information: 
4th World Congress on Targeting Microbiota, 17-19 October 2016, Pasteur Institute, Paris, France
Abstract: 

Aiming to assess the effect of restricted and ad-libitum diets on intestinal microbiota diversity (eubacteria and archaea) in rabbits, a 16S rDNA-based metaborcoding assessment through MiSEq platform was performed. Caecum and faeces samples from 11 adult animals (66-days-old) fed ad-libitum and 13 fed under restricted (75%) standard diet were assessed. Growth rate was individually recorded and the association between this trait and microbiome compositions was studied as well. Globally, a total of 1823 OTUs without singletons were clustered from 2.195.158 contigs. Taxonomic assignment (Greengenes database gg_13_5_otus) revealed that intestinal microbiota was dominated by Firmicutes  (76.3%), followed by Bacteroidetes (7.5%) and Tenericutes (7.5%). No overall differences between diets and faeces-caecum were detected based on Unifrac distances and PCoA analysis. However 7 OTUs were differentially represented between samples of caecum and faeces. It is noteworthy that 19 OTUs were overrepresented in samples from animals feed ad libitum, and 2 (order YS2 (Cyanobacteria)) were overrepresented in animals fed under restriction. OTU richness was positively (pFDR=0.012) associated to daily growth rate. The present study provides evidences of bacterial taxa and microbiome diversity associated to different diets and growth rate in rabbits.

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