TY - JOUR

T1 - Transmission of fungi and protozoa under grazing conditions from lactating yaks to sucking yak calves in early life

AU - Guo, Wei

AU - Liu, Tingmei

AU - Neves, André Luis Alves

AU - Long, Ruijun

AU - Degen, Allan

AU - Zhou, Mi

AU - Chen, Xiang

N1 - Funding Information: This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 31672453), China Scholarship Council (CSC), and Guizhou High-Level Innovative Talents Project (Qian Kehe Platform-GCC [2022]-021–1) and was partially funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Abstract: Microbiota from mothers is an essential source of microbes in early-life rumen microbiota, but the contribution of microbiota from different maternal sites to the rumen microbiota establishment in neonates needs more data. To fill this gap, we collected samples from the mouth, teat skin, and rumen of lactating yaks and from the rumen of sucking calves concomitantly on seven occasions between days 7 and 180 after birth under grazing conditions. We observed that the eukaryotic communities clustered based on sample sites, except for the protozoal community in the teat skin, with negative correlations between fungal and protozoal diversities in the rumen of calves. Furthermore, fungi in the dam’s mouth, which is the greatest source of the calf’s rumen fungi, accounted for only 0.1%, and the contribution of the dam’s rumen to the calf’s rumen fungi decreased with age and even disappeared after day 60. In contrast, the average contribution of the dam’s rumen protozoa to the calf’s rumen protozoa was 3.7%, and the contributions from the dam’s teat skin (from 0.7 to 2.7%) and mouth (from 0.4 to 3.3%) increased with age. Thus, the divergence in dam-to-calf transmissibility between fungi and protozoa indicates that the foundation of these eukaryotic communities is shaped by different rules. This study provides the first measurements of the maternal contribution to the fungal and protozoal establishment in the rumen of sucking and grazing yak calves in early life, which could be beneficial for future microbiota manipulation in neonatal ruminants. Key points: • Dam to calf transfer of rumen eukaryotes occurs from multiple body sites. • A minor proportion of rumen fungi in calves originated from maternal sites. • The inter-generation transmission between rumen fungi and protozoa differs.

AB - Abstract: Microbiota from mothers is an essential source of microbes in early-life rumen microbiota, but the contribution of microbiota from different maternal sites to the rumen microbiota establishment in neonates needs more data. To fill this gap, we collected samples from the mouth, teat skin, and rumen of lactating yaks and from the rumen of sucking calves concomitantly on seven occasions between days 7 and 180 after birth under grazing conditions. We observed that the eukaryotic communities clustered based on sample sites, except for the protozoal community in the teat skin, with negative correlations between fungal and protozoal diversities in the rumen of calves. Furthermore, fungi in the dam’s mouth, which is the greatest source of the calf’s rumen fungi, accounted for only 0.1%, and the contribution of the dam’s rumen to the calf’s rumen fungi decreased with age and even disappeared after day 60. In contrast, the average contribution of the dam’s rumen protozoa to the calf’s rumen protozoa was 3.7%, and the contributions from the dam’s teat skin (from 0.7 to 2.7%) and mouth (from 0.4 to 3.3%) increased with age. Thus, the divergence in dam-to-calf transmissibility between fungi and protozoa indicates that the foundation of these eukaryotic communities is shaped by different rules. This study provides the first measurements of the maternal contribution to the fungal and protozoal establishment in the rumen of sucking and grazing yak calves in early life, which could be beneficial for future microbiota manipulation in neonatal ruminants. Key points: • Dam to calf transfer of rumen eukaryotes occurs from multiple body sites. • A minor proportion of rumen fungi in calves originated from maternal sites. • The inter-generation transmission between rumen fungi and protozoa differs.

KW - Dam-to-infant transmission

KW - Eukaryotic microbes

KW - Maternal contribution

KW - Rumen microbial development

U2 - 10.1007/s00253-023-12616-y

DO - 10.1007/s00253-023-12616-y

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 37341753

AN - SCOPUS:85162272096

VL - 107

SP - 4931

EP - 4945

JO - Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

JF - Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

SN - 0175-7598

ER -