The gut microbiome in dogs with congestive heart failure: a pilot study

Compromised gut health and dysbiosis in people with heart failure has received a great deal of attention over the last decade. Whether dogs with heart failure have a similar dysbiosis pattern to what is described in people is currently unknown. We hypothesised that dogs with congestive heart failure have quantifiable dysbiosis compared to healthy dogs that are similar in sex and age. A total of 50 dogs (15 healthy dogs and 35 dogs with congestive heart failure) were prospectively recruited, and their faecal gut microbiome was assessed using 16S rRNA sequencing (Illumina MiSeq platform). There was no significant change in the microbial diversity and richness in dogs with congestive heart failure. However, there was an increase in abundance of Proteobacteria in the congestive heart failure group (p = 0.014), particularly due to an increase in the family Enterobacteriaceae (p = 0.002) and Escherichia coli (p = 0.033). We conclude that dogs with congestive heart failure have dysbiosis, and we show additional trends in our data suggesting that dogs may have a similar pattern to that described in people. The results of this study provide useful preliminary information and raise the possibility that dogs represent a clinically relevant animal model of dysbiosis in people with heart failure

Direct evidence for microbial-derived soil organic matter formation and its ecophysiological controls

Soil organic matter (SOM) and the carbon and nutrients therein drive fundamental submicron- to global-scale biogeochemical processes and influence carbon-climate feedbacks. Consensus is emerging that microbial materials are an important constituent of stable SOM, and new conceptual and quantitative SOM models are rapidly incorporating this view. However, direct evidence demonstrating that microbial residues account for the chemistry, stability and abundance of SOM is still lacking. Further, emerging models emphasize the stabilization of microbial-derived SOM by abiotic mechanisms, while the effects of microbial physiology on microbial residue production remain unclear. Here we provide the first direct evidence that soil microbes produce chemically diverse, stable SOM. We show that SOM accumulation is driven by distinct microbial communities more so than clay mineralogy, where microbial-derived SOM accumulation is greatest in soils with higher fungal abundances and more efficient microbial biomass production

Review of Measurement Techniques in Site Productivity Studies

This book is a synthesis of knowledge on the impacts of harvesting on long-term site productivity, stemming from information gathered from the International Energy Agency Bioenergy Agreement Project on Environmental Impacts of Intensive Harvesting. Annual workshops during the project have produced much new and important information and the work of over 150 collaborators on the project has been carefully synthesised into this book