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Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examined the effect of different feeding methods on the rumen bacterial flora of Tan sheep, a Chinese indigenous breed, using 16S rDNA high-throughput analysis. The rumen fluid was collected from 9-month-old Tan sheep that were either house-fed or grazed. The results showed that the diversity of rumen flora in the grazing group was significantly higher than that in the house-raised group (P < 0.01). In the grazing group, the abundance of 96 genera was significantly higher than that in the house-raised group (P < 0.05), whereas in the house-raised group, the abundance of only 24 genera was significantly higher than that in the grazing group (P < 0.05). At the phylum level, the abundance of Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Fibrobacteres, and Tenericutes in the rumen of grazing Tan sheep was significantly higher than that in the house-raised group (P < 0.01), whereas the abundance of Proteobacteria in the rumen of the house-raised group was significantly higher than that in the grazing group (P < 0.01). At the generic level, the abundance of Fibrobacter, Ruminococcus, Lachnospiraceae_XPB1014_group, and Lachnospiraceae_NA, which are associated with hemicellulose degradation, and Desulfovibrio, which is associated with lactic acid oxidation, was significantly higher in the grazing than in the house-raised group (P < 0.01). The abundance of the acid-producing Enterobacter, Vibrio, and Selenomonas in the house-raised group was significantly higher than that in the grazing group (P < 0.05). The abundance of Prevotella_7 and Succinivibrionaceae-UCG-001 in the house-raised group was 272.07 and 7605.75% higher than that in the grazing group, respectively, but the abundance of Prevotella_1 in the house-raised group was 3657.96% lower than that in the grazing group, with these differences highly significant (P < 0.01). The higher abundance of Prevotella_7 in the house-raised group and the higher abundance of Prevotella_1 in the grazing group are differences worthy of further study in Tan sheep.