Abstract
Mature and stable intestinal microbiota in chickens is essential for health and production. Slow development of microbiota in young chickens prolongs the precarious period before reaching mature configuration. Whether probiotics can play a role in the early maturation of intestinal microbiota is unknown. To address this, day-old chicks were assigned into six groups: NC (basal diet), PC (virginiamycin), low (BPL) and high-dose (BPH) of Bacillus pumilus, and low (BSL) and high-dose (BSH) of Bacillus subtilis. Cecal contents at days 7, 14, 28 and 42 were used to analyze the treatment and time effects on the diversity and composition of microbiota. Overall, the alpha diversity was significantly decreased in the NC group between days 7 and 14, while this decline was prevented in the Bacillus subtilis probiotic (BSL and BSH) and even reversed in the BPH group. The beta-diversity showed significant responses of microbial communities to probiotics in first two weeks of life. Analyses of the abundance of microbiota reflected that members of the family Ruminococcaceae (Ruminnococcus, Oscillospira, Faecalibacterium, Butyricicoccus, and Subdoligranulum), which were dominant in mature microbiota, were significantly higher in abundance at day 14 in the probiotic groups. Conversely, the abundance of genera within the family Lachnospiraceae (Ruminococcus, Blautia, and Coprococcus) was dominant in early dynamic microbiota but was significantly lower in the probiotic groups at day 14. The Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium abundance was higher, while the Enterobacteriaceae abundance was lower in the probiotic groups. In summary, the probiotics efficiently helped the cecal microbiota reach mature configuration earlier in life. These results could be used for the future manipulation of microbiota from the perspective of improving poultry performance.
Highlights
Poultry is a growing contributor to human dietary protein intake and is an important contributor to feeding a growing human population
The main objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of Bacillus probiotics, B. pumilus, and B. subtilis on microbial diversity and maturity in terms of changes in the composition of the families Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae in cecal microbiota at different stages of life in broiler chickens
Our results revealed that probiotics alleviated an age-related
Summary
Poultry is a growing contributor to human dietary protein intake and is an important contributor to feeding a growing human population. Poultry production increased from 9 to 132 million tons between 1961 and 2019 [1]. The tremendous advance in the poultry production system during the last 50 years has been achieved through improvements in genetics, management, and nutrition. Among the improvement of nutrition, the use of feed additives has increased and has contributed to the success in current broiler production. Probiotics are among the most researched feed additives and show promising results for production and health parameters [3]. Probiotics produce their effects through different mechanisms. Our laboratory has previously demonstrated the role of probiotics in the alleviation of pathogen-associated inflammation [4] and disrupted intestinal permeability [5]
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