Abstract
The community of microorganisms inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract of monogastric herbivores played critical roles in the absorption of nutrients and keeping the host healthy. However, its establishment at different age groups has not been quantitatively and functionally examined. The knowledge of microbial colonization and its function in the intestinal tract of different-age donkeys is still limited. By applying the V3–V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene and functional prediction on fecal samples from different-age donkeys, we characterized the gut microbiota during the different age groups. In contrast to the adult donkeys, the gut microbiota diversity and richness of the young donkeys showed significantly less resemblance. The microbial data showed that diversity and richness increased with age, but a highly individual variation of microbial composition was observed at month 1. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) revealed a significant difference across five time points in the feces. The abundance of Bacteroides, Lactobacillus, and Odoribacter tended to decrease, while the proportion of Streptococcus was significantly increased with age. For functional prediction, the relative abundance of pathways had a significant difference in the feces across different age groups, for example, Terpenoids and Polyketides and Folding, Sorting, and Degradation (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01). The analysis of beta diversity (PCoA and LEfSe) and microbial functions predicted with PICRUSt (NSTIs) clearly divided the donkeys into foals (≤3 months old) and adults (≥7 months old). Microbial community composition and structure had distinctive features at each age group, in accordance with functional stability of the microbiota. Our findings established a framework for understanding the composition and function of the fecal microbiota to differ between young and adult donkeys.
Highlights
Monogastric herbivores are an important component of the agricultural sector, due to the meat, milk, and skin they produce for human use; these animals must consume increasing feed resources to meet the demands of the growing human population (Eisler et al, 2014)
We identified statistically significant differences in alpha diversity, and microbial composition among donkeys of different ages was evaluated by one-way AVOVA
Fewer operational taxonomic units (OTUs) consisted in the younger donkeys (P < 0.01), but lower sequencing depths were required to cover the fecal microbiota at these ages (Figure 1B)
Summary
Monogastric herbivores are an important component of the agricultural sector, due to the meat, milk, and skin they produce for human use; these animals must consume increasing feed resources to meet the demands of the growing human population (Eisler et al, 2014). The gut microbial systems, which aid in the digestion of otherwise indigestible nutrients, are the most complex biological system in animals and have been considered as an extra digestive organ (Eisler et al, 2014). A growing body of evidence demonstrates that the relatively stable function of the gut microbiota supplies the host with increased adaptability to the environment (Gao et al, 2020) and plays fundamental roles in intestinal physiological development and nutrient metabolism (Bäckhed et al, 2015; Wu et al, 2016). Understanding the gut microbiota of donkeys at different age in-depth can increase animal health, feed utilization efficiency, and production, and may provide guidelines to early weaning technique
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