{"title":"Association between Weaning Stress and Rumen Microbiota in Goat Kids: Evidence from Granger Causality and Randomized Controlled Trial Validation.","authors":"Ziwei Peng, Hanjie Xiao, Weiwei Yang, Tong Wang, Haojiong Xie, Hui Yan, Shoukun Ji","doi":"10.5713/ab.25.0092","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>Weaning stress is frequently associated with disrupted gastrointestinal microbiota and decreased growth performance, the association between them remains unclear.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In this study, we employed Granger causality inference to compare the dynamic changes in gastrointestinal microbiota between stressed and non-stressed goat kids, followed by validation through a randomized controlled trial involving rumen microbiota transplantation.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Our findings indicated that the alpha diversity and microbial maturity of the rumen microbiota in stressed kids were significantly lower than those in non-stressed kids during the weaning period (p<0.05). Furthermore, the rumen microbiota at pre-weaning could accurately predict the body weight changes during weaning stress period (R2=0.99, RMSPE=0.19). We demonstrated that the cultured rumen microbiota retained most high-abundance rumen bacteria (89.22%), and its transplantation effectively altered the rumen microbiota (ANOSIM, p<0.05), enhanced microbial maturity (p<0.05), and improved growth performance (p<0.05) during weaning, without affecting the gut microbiota (p>0.05). Additionally, transplantation of the cultured rumen microbiota reduced intestinal permeability and inflammation while increasing antioxidant levels in weaned kids(p<0.05).</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>These findings provide evidence for the association between rumen microbiota and weaning stress, demonstrating that manipulating rumen microbiota is an effective strategy for alleviating weaning stress in goat kids.</p>","PeriodicalId":7825,"journal":{"name":"Animal Bioscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Animal Bioscience","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5713/ab.25.0092","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AGRICULTURE, DAIRY & ANIMAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objective: Weaning stress is frequently associated with disrupted gastrointestinal microbiota and decreased growth performance, the association between them remains unclear.
Methods: In this study, we employed Granger causality inference to compare the dynamic changes in gastrointestinal microbiota between stressed and non-stressed goat kids, followed by validation through a randomized controlled trial involving rumen microbiota transplantation.
Results: Our findings indicated that the alpha diversity and microbial maturity of the rumen microbiota in stressed kids were significantly lower than those in non-stressed kids during the weaning period (p<0.05). Furthermore, the rumen microbiota at pre-weaning could accurately predict the body weight changes during weaning stress period (R2=0.99, RMSPE=0.19). We demonstrated that the cultured rumen microbiota retained most high-abundance rumen bacteria (89.22%), and its transplantation effectively altered the rumen microbiota (ANOSIM, p<0.05), enhanced microbial maturity (p<0.05), and improved growth performance (p<0.05) during weaning, without affecting the gut microbiota (p>0.05). Additionally, transplantation of the cultured rumen microbiota reduced intestinal permeability and inflammation while increasing antioxidant levels in weaned kids(p<0.05).
Conclusion: These findings provide evidence for the association between rumen microbiota and weaning stress, demonstrating that manipulating rumen microbiota is an effective strategy for alleviating weaning stress in goat kids.