What does the gut say? Investigating gut microbiota diversity of local Egyptian cattle managed in different ecosystems

The gut microbiota (or gut microbiome) are the microorganisms that live in the digestive tracts of animals. These microorganisms have a significant impact on the efficiency and health of the animals.

The gut microbiota can provide valuable insights into understanding an animal’s adaptation to its environment; recent studies have indicated that gut microbiota composition has the potential to adapt to different environments that are affected by geography and intense heat stress. Given that climate change poses one of the greatest threats to animal productivity in tropical and subtropical regions, understanding the composition of microbiota and its interaction with its host (the animal that harbours the microorganisms) is essential for formulating knowledge-based strategies aimed at improving animal adaptability and productivity.

Examining the gut microbial composition

To gain more insight into the adaptability of local Egyptian cattle’s microbiota to their respective/specific environment, researchers involved in the OPTIBOV project collected faecal samples from Egyptian cattle from three different ecosystems (Upper Egypt, Middle Egypt, and Lower Egypt). Consequently, they analysed the microbiota to better understand the faecal microbial diversity of the breed which developed under different ecosystems.

“Microbiomics is a promising way to examine the alterations in the gut microbial composition that result from animals’ adaptation to different environments,” says Richard Crooijmans, associate professor at the Animal Breeding and Genomics Group. Crooijmans is the coordinator of the OPTIBOV project, a project that aims to characterise traditional locally adapted cattle breeds to detect and use genetic variation associated with adaptation to local ecosystems in order to improve breeding schemes for the future.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study in Egypt that has established a reference profile of the microbiota diversity of local Egyptian cattle being bred in three different ecosystems,” says Crooijmans. “The significant differences in the microbiota composition that we found among cattle developed in different geographical areas suggest an adaptive response of the animals to their respective/specific environment, with a clear effect of heat stress and feed type. However, additional studies in this area are needed to gather more details concerning other phenotypes such as the production and feeding traits of the cattle in the various ecosystems.”