The effect of calcium propionate on the ruminal bacterial community composition in finishing bulls

Manipulating the fermentation to improve the performance of the ruminant has attracted the attention of both farmers and animal scientists. Propionate salt supplementation in the diet could disturb the concentration of propionate and total volatile fatty acids in the rumen. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of calcium propionate supplementation on the ruminal bacterial community composition in finishing bulls.

Eight finishing bulls were randomly assigned to control group (CONT) and calcium propionate supplementation (PROP) feeding group, with four head per group. The control group was fed normal the total mixed ration (TMR) finishing diet, and PROP group was fed TMR supplemented with 200 g/d calcium propionate. At the end of the 51-day feeding trial, all bulls were slaughtered and rumen fluid was collected from each of the animals.

Propionate supplementation had no influence the rumen fermentation parameters (p>0.05). Ruminal bacterial community composition was analyzed by sequencing of hypervariable V3 regions of the 16S rRNA gene. The most abundant phyla were the Firmicutes (60.68%) and Bacteroidetes (23.67%), followed by Tenericutes (4.95%) and TM7 (3.39%). The predominant genera included Succiniclasticum (9.43%), Butyrivibrio (3.74%), Ruminococcus (3.46%) and Prevotella (2.86%). Bacterial community composition in the two groups were highly similar, except the abundance of Tenericutes declined along with the calcium propionate supplementation (p = 0.0078).

These data suggest that the ruminal bacterial community composition is nearly unchanged by propionate supplementation in finishing bulls.