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Impacts of environmental complexity on respiratory and gut microbiome community structure and diversity in growing pigs

Scientific reports • 2019
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Publication Information
Authors Ameer Megahed, Mohamed Zeineldin, Kaleigh Evans, Nidia Maradiaga, Ben Blair, Brian Aldridge, James Lowe
Keywords Not Available
Journal Scientific reports
Publisher Not Available
Volume Not Available
Issue Not Available
Pages Not Available
publication.type International
Paper Link Open Link
Supplementary Materials Not Available
Abstract
The limited understanding of the interaction between rearing environment of the growing pig and the pig’s microbial community impedes efforts to identify the optimal housing system to maximize animal health and production. Accordingly, we characterized the impact of housing complexity on shaping the respiratory and gut microbiota of growing pig. A total of 175 weaned pigs from 25 litters were randomly assigned within liter to either simple slatted-floor (S) or complex straw-based rearing ecosystem (C). Beside the floor swabs samples, fecal swabs and mucosal scraping samples from bronchus, ileum, and colon were collected approximately 164 days post-weaning at the time of slaughter. The S ecosystem seems to increase the α-diversity of respiratory and gut microbiota. Moreover, the C-raised pigs showed 35.4, 89.2, and 60.0% reduction in the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio than the S-raised pigs at bronchus …