Publication Database

Diversity of the faecal microbiota of sows before and after farrowing in 20 sow farms in Germany (2020)

Art

Poster

Autoren

Lührmann, A. (WE 4)

Vahjen, W. (WE 4)

Hellmich, J. (WE 4)

Zeilinger, K. (WE 4)

Zentek, J. (WE 4)

Kongress

24th ESVCN Congress

München, 17. – 19.09.2020

Quelle

Congress Proceedings : 24th Congress of the European College of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition : September 17 - 19, 2020 — Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Hrsg.)

München, 2020 — S. 53

ISBN: 978-90-90-33625-1

Sprache

Englisch

Verweise

URL (Volltext): https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/190612/1/Congress_proceedings_2020_ffv_(4).pdf

Kontakt

Institut für Tierernährung

Königin-Luise-Str. 49
14195 Berlin
+49 30 838 52256
tierernaehrung@vetmed.fu-berlin.de

Abstract / Zusammenfassung

Introduction:
It is known that the composition of the microbiota in sows is not constant, but depends on genetic, dietary and environmental conditions. Furthermore, the late phase of farrowing drastically changes physiological conditions of the animal. This may lead to changes in the microbiota as well. The aim of the study was therefore to screen the microbiota of sows before and after birth in 20 German pig farms to investigate possible changes in the microbial composition under practical conditions.

Animals, materials and methods:
Between January and November 2019, 400 faecal samples were collected from sows in 20 German pig farms. In each farm, samples of 10 sows were taken 14 days before and 7 days after farrowing. DNA was extracted with a commercial kit (QIAamp PowerFecal Pro DNA Kit, Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) and sequenced by Illumina MiSeq 16S DNA Sequencing. Bioinformatic analysis was performed using the pipeline DADA2 [1]. The mean relative abundances of detected bacteria before and after farrowing were computed and evaluated by the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-Test.

Results and discussion:
At the phylum level, 10 farms showed significant changes in the relative abundance of the dominant bacteria (>1%) after farrowing. On most farms, the phyla Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes decreased, while the Firmicutes increased compared to before farrowing. At the order level, the Erysipelotrichales showed a significant increase after farrowing in 15 farms. The Coriobacteriales and Selenomonadales significantly reduced their relative abundance after farrowing in 13 farms. Dominant genera that significantly increased after farrowing were Romboutsia (11/20), Clostridium sensu stricto 1 (10/20) and Turicibacter (9/20). Lactobacillus and Streptococcus, with few exceptions, had lower relative abundances after farrowing than 14 days before. Other genera with a lower abundance (< 1 %) were also affected differently in individual farms (data not shown). Overall, the results show that a shift in relevance within bacterial communities occurred for many different bacteria. This may lead to an altered susceptibility to disease and responsiveness to interventions on problematic farms with a history of microbial pathogens. The driver of microbial changes on individual farms could be individual changes in particular environments and management systems as well as feed changes combined with the particular physiological condition before birth and the suckling period. An integration of the intestinal microbiome into farm specific health strategies could therefore be a promising approach.

Conclusion:
The microbial composition of the fecal sow microbiota changes significantly between different times of production and between individual farms. In the future, it may be worthwhile for problematic farms to screen the microbial composition of sows before intervention. However, this would also require knowledge about farm husbandry, feeding and –management in order to integrate this data to predict which type of intervention gives the best chance of success.