Bacterial diversity in the rumen of mithun (Bos frontalis) fed on mixed tree leaves and rice straw based diet

Abstract

This work was done to study the bacterial diversity of mithun (Bos frontalis) fed on mixed tree leaves and rice straw based diet. Genomic DNA was extracted from the rumen liquor of mithun, 16S rDNA sequences were amplified, cloned and randomly selected for sequencing. The nearest neighbors were retrieved from the NCBI through a BLAST search and a phylogenetic tree was constructed. In our findings, 12% of clones showed similarity with known bacterial species (Prevotella ruminicola, Butyrivibriofibrisolvens,Pseudobutyrivibrioruminis,Succinivibriodextrinosolvensand Ruminococcus flavefaciens) and 6% of clones showed similarity with known bacterial genus (Butyrivibrio species, Streptococcus species) of 97-100% similarities. Twenty-two percent of clones showed similarity with known bacteria (P. ruminicola, Prevotella species, Sporanaerobacter acetigenes, Clostridiales bacterium, Bacteroidetes bacterium) of 90-97% similarities. Sequences of all the clones were also classified by using taxonomic classifier software available at Ribosomal Database Project and classification showed that, all the clones were under four phyla, namely Bacteroidetes (54%), Firmicutes (36%), Proteobacteria (4%) and Tenericutes (2%). The experiment showed that, bacterial population in the rumen of mithun fed on mixed tree leaves and rice straw based diet harbor diversified species of bacteria responsible for lignocellulosic feedstuffs.