Effect of dietary concentrate to forage ratio on growth performance, rumen fermentation and bacterial diversity of Tibetan sheep under barn feeding on Qinghai-Tibetan plateau

Hongjin Liu; Tianwei xu; Shixiao Xu; Li Ma; Xueping Han; Xungang Wang; Xiaoling Zhang; Linyong Hu; Na Zhao; Yongwei Chen; Li Pi; Xinquan Zhao

doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.27807v1

Effect of dietary concentrate to forage ratio on growth performance, rumen fermentation and bacterial diversity of Tibetan sheep under barn feeding on Qinghai-Tibetan plateau

Hongjin Liu^1,2, Tianwei xu³, Shixiao Xu ¹, Li Ma^1,2,4, Xueping Han¹, Xungang Wang¹, Xiaoling Zhang¹, Linyong Hu¹, Na Zhao¹, Yongwei Chen⁵, Li Pi¹, Xinquan Zhao¹

1 Northwest Institue of Plateau Biology Chinese Academic of Science, Xining, China

2 University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, The People's Republic of China

3 Northwest Institue of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academic of Science, Xining, China

4 Qinghai grassland station, Xining, The People's Republic of China

5 Technology Extension Service of Animal Husbandry of Qinghai, Xining, China

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.27807v1

Published: 2019-06-17
Accepted: 2019-06-17

Subject Areas: Biodiversity, Microbiology, Veterinary Medicine, Zoology, Nutrition
Keywords: 16S rRNA, Tibetan sheep, Concentrate-to-forage ratio, Rumen bacterial diversity, Rumen fermentation parameter, Growth performance

Copyright: © 2019 Liu et al.
Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Cite this article: Liu H, xu T, Xu S, Ma L, Han X, Wang X, Zhang X, Hu L, Zhao N, Chen Y, Pi L, Zhao X. 2019. Effect of dietary concentrate to forage ratio on growth performance, rumen fermentation and bacterial diversity of Tibetan sheep under barn feeding on Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27807v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27807v1

Abstract

This study aimed to reaearch the effects of different dietary concentrate to forage (C:F) ratio on growth performance, rumen fermentation and bacteria diversity of barn feeding Tibetan sheep. The experiment contains fiver treatments (HS1, HS2 HS3, HS4 and HS5; n=8, respectively) based on dietary C: F ratios 0:100, 15:85, 30:70, 45:55, and 60:40, respectively. The ruminal bacterial community structure was investigated through high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes in V4 hypervariable region. The results showed that increases dietary concentrate feed level from 0% to 60% exerted a positive effect on DMI, BW gain, gain rate and feed conversation ratio (F_CR) in Tibetan sheep. The increases dietary concentrate feed level increased NH₃-N, propionate and valerate concentrations, whereas, reduced molar ratio of acetate to propionate (A/P ratio) (P<0.05). For rumen bacterial diversity, increases in dietary concentrate content contributed to lower alpha diversity indexes including Shannon wiener, Chao1 and observed species, meanwhile, significantly increased the abundances of the phylum Bacteroidetes and the genus Prevotella_1 (P<0.05). In conclusion, increases dietary concentrate content improved the growth performance and Tibetan sheep fed diets of 45% concentrate obtained a better performance; the inclusion of concentrate in feed changed rumen fermentation from acetate fermentation to propionate fermentation, and improved the energy utilization efficiency of Tibetan sheep; the increases in concentrate content significantly reduced rumen bacteria diversity and changed the abundance of some core bacteria.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.

Supplemental Information

The raw data of the growth performance of Tibetan sheep

The treatment HS1= concentrate to forage ratio 0:100, HS2= concentrate to forage ratio 15:85, HS3= concentrate to forage ratio 30:70, HS4= concentrate to forage ratio 45:55, HS5=concentrate to forage ratio 60:40. DMI=dry matter intake; DM consume= DMI×t, t is experimental time(d), BW=body weight; ADG= average daily BW gain . FCR= feed conversion ratio.

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.27807v1/supp-1

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The supplementary materials of the manuscript

Table S1 The nutrition of concentrate and forage feed in the experiment. Table S2 The statistics of raw rate across the 20 different samples. Table S3 The relative abundance of the total phyla detected by taxonomic analysis (%). Table S4 The relative abundance of total genus detected by taxonomic analysis (%). Table S5 The relative abundance of the 8 most dominant bacteria at the phylum level^{. Table S6 The effect of increases dietary concentrate on the rumen bacteria at the genus level.}

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.27807v1/supp-2

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