Livestock microbial landscape patterns: Retail poultry microbiomes significantly vary by region and season.

ABSTRACT: Microbes play key roles in animal welfare and food safety but there is little understanding of whether microbiomes associated with livestock vary in space and time. Here we analysed the bacteria associated with the carcasses of the same breed of 28 poultry broiler flocks at different stages of processing across two climatically similar UK regions over two seasons with 16S metabarcode DNA sequencing. Numbers of taxa types did not differ by region, but did by season (P = 1.2 × 10^-19), and numbers increased with factory processing, especially in summer. There was also a significant (P < 1 × 10^-4) difference in the presences and abundances of taxa types by season, region and factory processing stage, and the signal for seasonal and regional differences remained highly sig

SUBMITTER: Schofield BJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8494115 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature