Diversity of gut methanogens in herbivorous animals

The digestion of plant biomass by symbiotic microbial communities in the gut of herbivore hosts also results in the production of methane, a greenhouse gas that is released into the environment where it contributes to climate change. As methane is exclusively produced by methanogenic archaea, variou...

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Main Authors: B. St-Pierre, A.-D.G. Wright
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2013-01-01
Series:Animal
Subjects:
gut
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731112000912
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spelling doaj-75f7d203a67340039c457ea3801b845a2021-06-06T04:47:58ZengElsevierAnimal1751-73112013-01-0174956Diversity of gut methanogens in herbivorous animalsB. St-Pierre0A.-D.G. Wright1Department of Animal Science, The University of Vermont, 570 Main Street, Burlington, Vermont 05405, USADepartment of Animal Science, The University of Vermont, 570 Main Street, Burlington, Vermont 05405, USAThe digestion of plant biomass by symbiotic microbial communities in the gut of herbivore hosts also results in the production of methane, a greenhouse gas that is released into the environment where it contributes to climate change. As methane is exclusively produced by methanogenic archaea, various research groups have devoted their efforts to investigate the population structure of symbiotic methanogens in the gut of herbivores. In this review, we summarized and compared currently available results from 16S rRNA gene clone library studies, which cover a broad range of hosts from ruminant livestock species to wild ruminants, camelids, marsupials, primates, birds and reptiles. Although gut methanogens are very diverse, they tend to be limited to specific phylogenetic groups. Overall, methanogens related to species of the genus Methanobrevibacter are the most highly represented archaea in the gut of herbivores. However, under certain conditions, archaea from more phylogenetically distant groups are the most prevalent, such as methanogens belonging to either the genus Methanosphaera, the order Methanomicrobiales or the Thermoplasmatales-Affiliated Lineage C Comparisons not only highlight the strong influence of host species and diet in the determination of the population structure of symbiotic methanogens, but also reveal other complex relationships, such as wide differences between breeds, as well as unexpected similarities between unrelated species. These observations strongly support the need for high throughput sequencing and metagenomic studies to gain further insight.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731112000912herbivoregutrumenmethanogenarchaea
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author B. St-Pierre
A.-D.G. Wright
spellingShingle B. St-Pierre
A.-D.G. Wright
Diversity of gut methanogens in herbivorous animals
Animal
herbivore
gut
rumen
methanogen
archaea
author_facet B. St-Pierre
A.-D.G. Wright
author_sort B. St-Pierre
title Diversity of gut methanogens in herbivorous animals
title_short Diversity of gut methanogens in herbivorous animals
title_full Diversity of gut methanogens in herbivorous animals
title_fullStr Diversity of gut methanogens in herbivorous animals
title_full_unstemmed Diversity of gut methanogens in herbivorous animals
title_sort diversity of gut methanogens in herbivorous animals
publisher Elsevier
series Animal
issn 1751-7311
publishDate 2013-01-01
description The digestion of plant biomass by symbiotic microbial communities in the gut of herbivore hosts also results in the production of methane, a greenhouse gas that is released into the environment where it contributes to climate change. As methane is exclusively produced by methanogenic archaea, various research groups have devoted their efforts to investigate the population structure of symbiotic methanogens in the gut of herbivores. In this review, we summarized and compared currently available results from 16S rRNA gene clone library studies, which cover a broad range of hosts from ruminant livestock species to wild ruminants, camelids, marsupials, primates, birds and reptiles. Although gut methanogens are very diverse, they tend to be limited to specific phylogenetic groups. Overall, methanogens related to species of the genus Methanobrevibacter are the most highly represented archaea in the gut of herbivores. However, under certain conditions, archaea from more phylogenetically distant groups are the most prevalent, such as methanogens belonging to either the genus Methanosphaera, the order Methanomicrobiales or the Thermoplasmatales-Affiliated Lineage C Comparisons not only highlight the strong influence of host species and diet in the determination of the population structure of symbiotic methanogens, but also reveal other complex relationships, such as wide differences between breeds, as well as unexpected similarities between unrelated species. These observations strongly support the need for high throughput sequencing and metagenomic studies to gain further insight.
topic herbivore
gut
rumen
methanogen
archaea
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731112000912
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