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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, October 2009, p. 6524-6533, Vol. 75, No. 20
0099-2240/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.02815-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Assessment of the Microbial Ecology of Ruminal Methanogens in Cattle with Different Feed Efficiencies{triangledown}

Mi Zhou, Emma Hernandez-Sanabria, and Le Luo Guan*

Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2P5

Received 11 December 2008/ Accepted 20 August 2009

Cattle with high feed efficiencies (designated "efficient") produce less methane gas than those with low feed efficiencies (designated "inefficient"); however, the role of the methane producers in such difference is unknown. This study investigated whether the structures and populations of methanogens in the rumen were associated with differences in cattle feed efficiencies by using culture-independent methods. Two 16S rRNA libraries were constructed using ~800-bp amplicons generated from pooled total DNA isolated from efficient (n = 29) and inefficient (n = 29) animals. Sequence analysis of up to 490 randomly selected clones from each library showed that the methanogenic composition was variable: less species variation (22 operational taxonomic units [OTUs]) was detected in the rumens of efficient animals, compared to 27 OTUs in inefficient animals. The methanogenic communities in inefficient animals were more diverse than those in efficient ones, as revealed by the diversity indices of 0.84 and 0.42, respectively. Differences at the strain and genotype levels were also observed and found to be associated with feed efficiency in the host. No difference was detected in the total population of methanogens, but the prevalences of Methanosphaera stadtmanae and Methanobrevibacter sp. strain AbM4 were 1.92 (P < 0.05) and 2.26 (P < 0.05) times higher in inefficient animals, while Methanobrevibacter sp. strain AbM4 was reported for the first time to occur in the bovine rumen. Our data indicate that the methanogenic ecology at the species, strain, and/or genotype level in the rumen may play important roles in contributing to the difference in methane gas production between cattle with different feed efficiencies.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: 410 Agr/For Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2P5. Phone: (780) 492-2480. Fax: (780) 492-4265. E-mail: lguan{at}ualberta.ca

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 28 August 2009.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, October 2009, p. 6524-6533, Vol. 75, No. 20
0099-2240/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.02815-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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