Although LIBSHUFF analysis indicated that individual clone libraries were significantly different from each other, additional studies comparing a larger pool of animals PHA-848125 cost of different age groups under a controlled diet will be required to gain further insight into individual variation in methanogen population structure in the alpaca. Future studies will also help in assessing the degree to which the methanogen population structure observed in the present study was influenced by factors such as sampling method or a diet not representative of the natural environment of the alpaca. Methanogen density estimates from our study (4.40 × 108 – 1.52 × 109 cells/g) compared favorably with previously reported studies in cattle
(9.8 × 108 cells/g [4] and 1.3 × 109 cells/g [22]), reindeer (3.17 × 109 cells/g, [5]), or hoatzin (5.8 × 109 cells/g [6]). click here Reduced methane emissions in the
alpaca are therefore less likely to be a result of lower methanogen densities, as observed in the wallaby [4], and may be due to differences in the structure of its archaeal community. Alpaca methanogen populations from our study were distinct in that the most highly represented OTUs showed 98% or greater sequence identity to the 16S rRNA gene of Methanobrevibacter millerae. In comparison with other hosts, 16S rRNA clones showing species-like identity to Methanobrevibacter gottschalkii were dominant in sheep from Venezuela [28] and in wallabies sampled during the Australian spring time (November sample) [4], but we did not identify any clones
from our libraries with species-level sequence identity to this methanogen. In the Murrah breed of water buffalo from India, the majority of clones were from the genus Methanomicrobium [34], but we did not detect any 16S rRNA gene sequences from any genera within the order Methanomicrobiales in our analysis. In yak, archaeal sequences related to the Methanobrevibacter strain NT7 were the most highly represented [35]. Clones belonging to the uncultured archaeal group were dominant in sheep from Queensland (Australia) [30], wallabies (May sample) [4], reindeer [5], and in potato-fed cattle from Prince Edward Island (Canada) [31], but we found them to be in low abundance in our study. While Loperamide significantly represented in our libraries, OTUs showing species-level identity to Methanobrevibacter ruminantium were not as abundant as reported in the hoatzin [6], in corn-fed cattle from Ontario (Canada) [31], in lactating dairy cattle [36], or in beef cattle fed a low-energy diet [37]. While their microbiome displayed a distinct representation of specific archaeal groups, alpacas from our study harbored methanogens from similar phylogenetic groups that appeared to form a continuum of species rather than discreet groups (Figure 2), as reported in other hosts [38]. The 37 OTUs from alpaca with genus-like sequence identity to Methanobrevibacter species appeared to be mostly distributed between two large clades (Figure 2).