An Antimethanogenic Nutritional Intervention in Early Life of Ruminants Modifies Ruminal Colonization by Archaea

The aim of this work was to study whether feeding a methanogen inhibitor from birth of goat kids and their does has an impact on the archaeal population colonizing the rumen and to what extent the impact persists later in life. Sixteen goats giving birth to two kids were used. Eight does were treated (D+) with bromochloromethane after giving birth and over 2 months. The other 8 goats were not treated (D−). One kid per doe in both groups was treated with bromochloromethane (k+) for 3 months while the other was untreated (k−), resulting in four experimental groups: D+/k+, D+/k−, D−/k+, and D−/k−. Rumen samples were collected from kids at weaning and 1 and 4 months after (3 and 6 months after birth) and from does at the end of the treating period (2 months). Pyrosequencing analyses showed a modified archaeal community composition colonizing the rumen of kids, although such effect did not persist entirely 4 months after; however, some less abundant groups remained different in treated and control animals. The different response on the archaeal community composition observed between offspring and adult goats suggests that the competition occurring in the developing rumen to occupy different niches offer potential for intervention

An Antimethanogenic Nutritional Intervention in Early Life of Ruminants Modifies Ruminal Colonization by Archaea

The aim of this work was to study whether feeding a methanogen inhibitor from birth of goat kids and their does has an impact on the archaeal population colonizing the rumen and to what extent the impact persists later in life. Sixteen goats giving birth to two kids were used. Eight does were treated (D+) with bromochloromethane after giving birth and over 2 months. The other 8 goats were not treated (D−). One kid per doe in both groups was treated with bromochloromethane (k+) for 3 months while the other was untreated (k−), resulting in four experimental groups: D+/k+, D+/k−, D−/k+, and D−/k−. Rumen samples were collected from kids at weaning and 1 and 4 months after (3 and 6 months after birth) and from does at the end of the treating period (2 months). Pyrosequencing analyses showed a modified archaeal community composition colonizing the rumen of kids, although such effect did not persist entirely 4 months after; however, some less abundant groups remained different in treated and control animals. The different response on the archaeal community composition observed between offspring and adult goats suggests that the competition occurring in the developing rumen to occupy different niches offer potential for intervention

Population structure and history of the Welsh sheep breeds determined by whole genome genotyping

BACKGROUND: One of the most economically important areas within the Welsh agricultural sector is sheep farming, contributing around £230 million to the UK economy annually. Phenotypic selection over several centuries has generated a number of native sheep breeds, which are presumably adapted to the diverse and challenging landscape of Wales. Little is known about the history, genetic diversity and relationships of these breeds with other European breeds. We genotyped 353 individuals from 18 native Welsh sheep breeds using the Illumina OvineSNP50 array and characterised the genetic structure of these breeds. Our genotyping data were then combined with, and compared to, those from a set of 74 worldwide breeds, previously collected during the International Sheep Genome Consortium HapMap project. RESULTS: Model based clustering of the Welsh and European breeds indicated shared ancestry. This finding was supported by multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS), which revealed separation of the European, African and Asian breeds. As expected, the commercial Texel and Merino breeds appeared to have extensive co-ancestry with most European breeds. Consistently high levels of haplotype sharing were observed between native Welsh and other European breeds. The Welsh breeds did not, however, form a genetically homogeneous group, with pairwise F(ST) between breeds averaging 0.107 and ranging between 0.020 and 0.201. Four subpopulations were identified within the 18 native breeds, with high homogeneity observed amongst the majority of mountain breeds. Recent effective population sizes estimated from linkage disequilibrium ranged from 88 to 825. CONCLUSIONS: Welsh breeds are highly diverse with low to moderate effective population sizes and form at least four distinct genetic groups. Our data suggest common ancestry between the native Welsh and European breeds. These findings provide the basis for future genome-wide association studies and a first step towards developing genomics assisted breeding strategies in the UK. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12863-015-0216-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users