Heritable and Nonheritable Rumen Bacteria Are Associated with Different Characters of Lactation Performance of Dairy Cows
Xin‐Wei Zang, Hui‐Zeng Sun, Ming‐Yuan Xue, Zhe Zhang, Graham Plastow, Tianfu Yang, Le Luo Guan, Jianxin Liu
Abstract
Rumen bacteria produce volatile fatty acids which exert a far-reaching influence on hepatic metabolism, mammary gland metabolism, and animal production. In the current study, 32 heritable and 674 nonheritable bacterial taxa at species level were identified, and shown to have different microbiability (overall community contribution) and mean microbiability (the average of a single taxon's contribution) for lactation performance. The predicted functions of heritable and nonheritable bacterial taxa also differed, suggesting that targeted nutritional and genetic breeding approaches could be used to manipulate them to improve dairy cow performance.