Comparison of the fecal microbiota composition between the blue Sheep (Pseudois nayaur) fed with Lolium perenne and Sorghum sudanense
Lolium perenne L. and Sorghum sudanense (Piper) Stapf. are two common forages fed to the captive blue sheep. However, the effect of these two forages on the gastrointestinal microbiota is largely unknown. We analyzed the microbiota diversity in feces of the captive blue sheep fed with L. perenne (F1) and S. sudanense (F2) by 16S rRNA sequencing. A total number of 20 major phyla and 29 genera fecal bacterial communities were detected in the two groups. The F1 and F2 groups shared common microbiota at the phylum level, which mainly consisted of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. Ruminococcaceae_UCG-005, Eubacterium_coprostanoligenes_group, Ruminococcaceae_UCG-013 and Ruminococcaceae_UCG-010 were top four dominant taxa at the genus level. The percentage of Ruminococcaceae_UCG-010 in F2 was significantly higher than that in F1 (~2.75 fold). The diversity and abundance of the microbial community in F2 were higher than that in F1. Although both of the L. perenne and S. sudanense effect the blue sheep gastrointestinal microbiota metabolism, the S. sudanense improves more aspects in metabolism and biogenesis. In summary, our results demonstrated that the L. perenne and S. sudanense effect the blue sheep gastrointestinal microbiota in different ways. But S. sudanense efficiently improved the blue sheep gastrointestinal microbiota.