Stochasticity Highlights the Development of Both the Gastrointestinal and Upper-Respiratory-Tract Microbiomes of Neonatal Dairy Calves in Early Life.

ABSTRACT: The microbiome of dairy calves undergoes extensive change due to various forces during the first weeks of life. Importantly, diseases such as bovine respiratory disease (BRD) and calf diarrhea can have profound impacts on the early-life microbiome. Therefore, a longitudinal, repeated-measures pilot study was designed to characterize the establishment of nasal and fecal microbiomes of dairy calves, assess the governing forces of microbial assembly, and evaluate how disease states impact these microbial ecologies. Dairy calves (n = 19) were clinically evaluated for gastrointestinal and respiratory disease across three weeks beginning at age ≤ seven days old. Fecal (n = 57) and nasal (n = 57) microbial samples were taken for paired-end 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. T

SUBMITTER: Frazier AN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11816138 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature