Abstract
This study describes the fecal microbiota from piglets reared in different living environments during the weaning transition, and presents the characteristics of microbiota associated with good growth of piglets after weaning. Fecal samples were collected pre- (d26) and post-weaning (d35) from 288 male piglets in 16 conventional indoor commercial farms located in the West of France. The changes one week after weaning on the most abundant microbial families was roughly the same in all farms: alpha diversity increased, the relative abundance of Bacteroidaceae (-61%), Christensenellaceae (-35%), Enterobacteriaceae (-42%), and Clostridiaceae (-32%) decreased, while the relative abundance of Prevotellaceae (+143%) and Lachnospiraceae (+21%) increased. Among all the collected samples, four enterotypes that were ubiquitous in all farms were identified. They could be discriminated by their respective relative abundances of Prevotella, Faecalibacterium, Roseburia, and Lachnospira, and likely corresponded to a gradual maturational shift from pre- to post-weaning microbiota. The rearing environment influenced the frequency of enterotypes, as well as the relative abundance of 6 families at d26 (including Christensenellaceae and Lactobacillaceae), and of 21 families at d35. In all farms, piglets showing the highest relative growth rate during the first three weeks after weaning, which were characterized as more robust, had a higher relative abundance of Bacteroidetes, a lower relative abundance of Proteobacteria, and showed a greater increase in Prevotella, Coprococcus, and Lachnospira in the post-weaning period. This study revealed the presence of ubiquitous enterotypes among the farms of this study, reflecting maturational stages of microbiota from a young suckling to an older cereal-eating profile. Despite significant variation in the microbial profile between farms, piglets whose growth after weaning was less disrupted were, those who had reached the more mature phenotype characterized by Prevotella the fastest.
Highlights
In pig husbandry, weaning is a critical health-challenging period for piglets, combining nutritional, environmental, and social changes
Intestinal homeostasis plays a major role in maintaining of general health and preventing infectious diseases [1], and this is relevant for piglets at weaning, for which the abrupt environmental changes may generate a dysbiosis, favorable to pathogenic bacteria, causing post-weaning diarrhea (PWD) [2]
We developed two approaches to identify microbial signatures that would be predictive of relative average daily gain (rADG)
Summary
In pig husbandry, weaning is a critical health-challenging period for piglets, combining nutritional, environmental, and social changes. Microbiota richness and the abundance of some genera differ between low and normal birth weight piglets until weaning age [9] When it comes to animal health, increasing evidence suggests that disturbances to microbiota can result in a higher propensity to develop certain health disorders [2, 10]. The impact of the rearing environment on the microbiota of piglets was shown for the genera Oscillospira, Megasphaera, Parabacteroides, and Corynebacterium, whose abundances differed among pigs from different farms [13] It is important, when looking for observed associations between the microbiota and biological characteristics of the individuals that host it, to verify the stability of these associations from one farm to another [14]
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