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Dietary energy alters jejunal microbial function without changing its structure in small-tailed Han sheep
Yize Song1, Xiufen Pu1, Qing Liu1
1State Key Laboratory of Animal Biotech Breeding, Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
Frontiers in Veterinary Science
|March 30, 2026
Summary
Dietary energy levels impact sheep gut microbes, altering their function but not structure. High energy boosts growth pathways, while low energy promotes stress adaptation in jejunal microbes.
Area of Science:
- Animal Science
- Microbiology
- Nutritional Science
Background:
- Dietary energy significantly influences gastrointestinal microbial communities.
- Understanding these effects is crucial for optimizing livestock health and productivity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of varying dietary energy levels on the jejunal microbial community structure and function in Small-tailed Han (STH) sheep.
- To identify specific microbial pathways affected by dietary energy.
Main Methods:
- Thirty 6-month-old STH sheep were fed corn-based diets with different energy levels for 150 days.
- Jejunal contents were analyzed using metagenomic sequencing for microbial diversity and composition.
- Functional annotation was performed using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database.
Main Results:
- No significant changes were observed in jejunal microbial alpha diversity or community structure across different dietary energy groups.
- Bacillota remained the dominant phylum and Methanobrevibacter the most abundant genus, with no significant abundance changes.
- Significant differences in microbial functional pathways were detected, with low-energy diets enriching stress adaptation pathways and high-energy diets enriching anabolic metabolism pathways.
Conclusions:
- Dietary energy levels profoundly influence the functional potential of jejunal microbiota in STH sheep, despite not altering community structure.
- These functional shifts suggest a role for dietary energy in modulating host nutrient acquisition and health via the gut microbiota.
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