Diversity of the bacterial and viral communities in the tropical horse tick, Dermacentor nitens in Colombia.
Abstract: Ticks are obligatory hematophagous ectoparasites that transmit pathogens among various vertebrates, including humans. The composition of the microbial and viral communities in addition to the pathogenic microorganisms is highly diverse in ticks, but the factors driving the diversity are not well understood. The tropical horse tick, , is distributed throughout the Americas and it is recognized as a natural vector of and , the causal agents of equine piroplasmosis. We characterized the bacterial and viral communities associated with partially-fed females collected by a passive survey on horses from field sites representing three distinct geographical areas in Colombia (Bolivar, Antioquia, and Cordoba). RNA-seq and sequencing of the V3 and V4 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene were performed using the Illumina-Miseq platform. A total of 356 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified, in which the presumed endosymbiotic Francisellaceae/ spp. was predominantly found. Nine contigs corresponding to six different viruses were identified in three viral families: Chuviridae, Rhabdoviridae, and Flaviviridae. Differences in the relative abundance of the microbial composition among the geographical regions were found to be independent of the presence of -Like Endosymbiont (FLE). The most prevalent bacteria found on each region were in Bolivar, in Antioquia, and in Cordoba. -like endosymbionts, mainly recognized as the etiological agent of rickettsioses in Colombia were detected in the Cordoba samples. Metatranscriptomics revealed 13 contigs containing FLE genes, suggesting a trend of regional differences. These findings suggest regional distinctions among the ticks and their bacterial compositions.
Publication Date: 2023-05-05 PubMed ID: 37205465PubMed Central: PMC10187316DOI: 10.1101/2023.05.04.539352Google Scholar: Lookup
The Equine Research Bank provides access to a large database of publicly available scientific literature. Inclusion in the Research Bank does not imply endorsement of study methods or findings by Mad Barn.
- Preprint
Summary
This research summary has been generated with artificial intelligence and may contain errors and omissions. Refer to the original study to confirm details provided. Submit correction.
This research paper investigates the bacterial and viral diversity in the tropical horse tick found in distinct geographical regions in Colombia, aiming to understand regional variations and factors driving this diversity. The study identified a total of 356 bacterial units and nine viral contigs belonging to three different viral families.
Tick Collection and Sequencing
- The researchers collected partially-fed female ticks from horses in three distinct regions in Colombia: Bolivar, Antioquia, and Cordoba. These ticks were then subjected to RNA sequencing and 16S rRNA gene sequencing using the Illumina-Miseq platform.
Identification of Bacteria and Viruses
- A total of 356 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified, with the predominant bacteria being of the endosymbiotic Francisellaceae/Coxiella spp.
- Six different viruses were also found, grouped into three viral families: Chuviridae, Rhabdoviridae, and Flaviviridae.
Geographical Differences in Microbial Composition
- The study found differences in the relative abundance of the microbial composition among the three geographic regions.
- The most prevalent bacteria in each region were Anaplasma in Bolivar, Coxiella in Antioquia, and Ehrlichia in Cordoba.
- Interestingly, these differences were found to be independent of the presence of Francisella-Like Endosymbiont (FLE), another pervasive bacterium.
Presence of Rickettsioses Etiological Agent
- Rickettsia, a type of bacteria recognized as the causative agent of rickettsiosis (a group of serious bacterial infections), was detected in the samples from Cordoba.
Identified Gene Contigs
- Metatranscriptomics, the study of RNA molecules, revealed 13 contigs (parts of the virus or bacterium) containing FLE genes, suggesting regional differences.
Conclusion
- The results suggest the existence of regional distinctions among the ticks and their associated bacterial compositions, which may have implications for the transmission of various diseases by these ticks across different regions.
Cite This Article
APA
Holguin-Rocha AF, Calle-Tobon A, Vásquez GM, Astete H, Fisher ML, Tobon-Castano A, Velez-Tobon G, Maldonado-Ruiz LP, Silver K, Park Y, Londono-Renteria B.
(2023).
Diversity of the bacterial and viral communities in the tropical horse tick, Dermacentor nitens in Colombia.
bioRxiv, 2023.05.04.539352.
https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.05.04.539352 Publication
Researcher Affiliations
- Department of Entomology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA.
- Grupo Entomologia Medica, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia.
- U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 6 (NAMRU-6), Bellavista, Callao, Peru.
- U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 6 (NAMRU-6), Bellavista, Callao, Peru.
- U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 6 (NAMRU-6), Bellavista, Callao, Peru.
- Navy Warfare Development Center, Norfolk, VA (Current Affiliation).
- Grupo Malaria, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia.
- Grupo Malaria, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia.
- Department of Entomology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA.
- Department of Entomology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA.
- Department of Entomology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA.
- School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA.
Grant Funding
- R21 AI163423 / NIAID NIH HHS
Conflict of Interest Statement
Conflict of Interest. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
References
This article includes 78 references
- Bonnet SI, Binetruy F, Hernández-Jarguín AM, Duron O. The Tick Microbiome: Why Non-pathogenic Microorganisms Matter in Tick Biology and Pathogen Transmission.. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 2017;7:236.
- Madison-Antenucci S, Kramer LD, Gebhardt LL, Kauffman E. Emerging Tick-Borne Diseases.. Clin Microbiol Rev 2020 Mar 18;33(2).
- Prasad N, Murdoch DR, Reyburn H, Crump JA. Etiology of Severe Febrile Illness in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review.. PLoS One 2015;10(6):e0127962.
- Cabezas-Cruz A, Vayssier-Taussat M, Greub G. Tick-borne pathogen detection: what's new?. Microbes Infect 2018 Aug-Sep;20(7-8):441-444.
- Bouchard C, Dibernardo A, Koffi J, Wood H, Leighton PA, Lindsay LR. N Increased risk of tick-borne diseases with climate and environmental changes.. Can Commun Dis Rep 2019 Apr 4;45(4):83-89.
- Dantas-Torres F, Chomel BB, Otranto D. Ticks and tick-borne diseases: a One Health perspective.. Trends Parasitol 2012 Oct;28(10):437-46.
- Gall CA, Reif KE, Scoles GA, Mason KL, Mousel M, Noh SM, Brayton KA. The bacterial microbiome of Dermacentor andersoni ticks influences pathogen susceptibility.. ISME J 2016 Aug;10(8):1846-55.
- Narasimhan S, Swei A, Abouneameh S, Pal U, Pedra JHF, Fikrig E. Grappling with the tick microbiome.. Trends Parasitol 2021 Aug;37(8):722-733.
- Park JM, Oliva Chávez AS, Shaw DK. Ticks: More Than Just a Pathogen Delivery Service.. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 2021;11:739419.
- Wu-Chuang A, Obregon D, Mateos-Hernández L, Cabezas-Cruz A. Anti-tick microbiota vaccines: how can this actually work?. Biologia 2022 Jun 1;77(6):1555–62.
- Cabezas-Cruz A, Pollet T, Estrada-Peña A, Allain E, Bonnet S I., Moutailler S. Handling the Microbial Complexity Associated to Ticks. Ticks and Tick-Borne Pathogens 2019.
- Díaz-Sánchez S, Estrada-Peña A, Cabezas-Cruz A, de la Fuente J. Evolutionary Insights into the Tick Hologenome.. Trends Parasitol 2019 Sep;35(9):725-737.
- Duron O, Morel O, Noël V, Buysse M, Binetruy F, Lancelot R, Loire E, Ménard C, Bouchez O, Vavre F, Vial L. Tick-Bacteria Mutualism Depends on B Vitamin Synthesis Pathways.. Curr Biol 2018 Jun 18;28(12):1896-1902.e5.
- Narasimhan S, Fikrig E. Tick microbiome: the force within.. Trends Parasitol 2015 Jul;31(7):315-23.
- Sumrandee C, Hirunkanokpun S, Grubhoffer L, Baimai V, Trinachartvanit W, Ahantarig A. Phylogenetic relationships of Francisella-like endosymbionts detected in two species of Amblyomma from snakes in Thailand.. Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2014 Feb;5(1):29-32.
- Klindworth A, Pruesse E, Schweer T, Peplies J, Quast C, Horn M, Glöckner FO. Evaluation of general 16S ribosomal RNA gene PCR primers for classical and next-generation sequencing-based diversity studies.. Nucleic Acids Res 2013 Jan 7;41(1):e1.
- Gurfield N, Grewal S, Cua LS, Torres PJ, Kelley ST. Endosymbiont interference and microbial diversity of the Pacific coast tick, Dermacentor occidentalis, in San Diego County, California.. PeerJ 2017;5:e3202.
- Xiang L, Poźniak B, Cheng TY. Bacteriological analysis of saliva from partially or fully engorged female adult Rhipicephalus microplus by next-generation sequencing.. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 2017 Jan;110(1):105-113.
- Bonnet SI, Pollet T. Update on the intricate tango between tick microbiomes and tick-borne pathogens.. Parasite Immunol 2021 May;43(5):e12813.
- Wu-Chuang A, Hodžić A, Mateos-Hernández L, Estrada-Peña A, Obregon D, Cabezas-Cruz A. Current debates and advances in tick microbiome research.. Curr Res Parasitol Vector Borne Dis 2021;1:100036.
- Pettersson JH, Shi M, Bohlin J, Eldholm V, Brynildsrud OB, Paulsen KM, Andreassen Å, Holmes EC. Characterizing the virome of Ixodes ricinus ticks from northern Europe.. Sci Rep 2017 Sep 7;7(1):10870.
- Tokarz R, Williams SH, Sameroff S, Sanchez Leon M, Jain K, Lipkin WI. Virome analysis of Amblyomma americanum, Dermacentor variabilis, and Ixodes scapularis ticks reveals novel highly divergent vertebrate and invertebrate viruses.. J Virol 2014 Oct;88(19):11480-92.
- Li CX, Shi M, Tian JH, Lin XD, Kang YJ, Chen LJ, Qin XC, Xu J, Holmes EC, Zhang YZ. Unprecedented genomic diversity of RNA viruses in arthropods reveals the ancestry of negative-sense RNA viruses.. Elife 2015 Jan 29;4.
- Brinkmann A, Dinçer E, Polat C, Hekimoğlu O, Hacıoğlu S, Földes K, Özkul A, Öktem İMA, Nitsche A, Ergünay K. A metagenomic survey identifies Tamdy orthonairovirus as well as divergent phlebo-, rhabdo-, chu- and flavi-like viruses in Anatolia, Turkey.. Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2018 Jul;9(5):1173-1183.
- Shi J, Hu Z, Deng F, Shen S. Tick-Borne Viruses.. Virol Sin 2018 Feb;33(1):21-43.
- Tokarz R, Sameroff S, Tagliafierro T, Jain K, Williams SH, Cucura DM, Rochlin I, Monzon J, Carpi G, Tufts D, Diuk-Wasser M, Brinkerhoff J, Lipkin WI. Identification of Novel Viruses in Amblyomma americanum, Dermacentor variabilis, and Ixodes scapularis Ticks.. mSphere 2018 Mar-Apr;3(2).
- Sameroff S, Tokarz R, Charles RA, Jain K, Oleynik A, Che X, Georges K, Carrington CV, Lipkin WI, Oura C. Viral Diversity of Tick Species Parasitizing Cattle and Dogs in Trinidad and Tobago.. Sci Rep 2019 Jul 18;9(1):10421.
- Gómez GF, Isaza JP, Segura JA, Alzate JF, Gutiérrez LA. Metatranscriptomic virome assessment of Rhipicephalus microplus from Colombia.. Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2020 Sep;11(5):101426.
- Orozco Orozco M, Gómez GF, Alzate JF, Isaza JP, Gutiérrez LA. Virome analysis of three Ixodidae ticks species from Colombia: A potential strategy for discovering and surveying tick-borne viruses.. Infect Genet Evol 2021 Dec;96:105103.
- Xu L, Guo M, Hu B, Zhou H, Yang W, Hui L, Huang R, Zhan J, Shi W, Wu Y. Tick virome diversity in Hubei Province, China, and the influence of host ecology.. Virus Evol 2021;7(2):veab089.
- Schwint ON, Knowles DP, Ueti MW, Kappmeyer LS, Scoles GA. Transmission of Babesia caballi by Dermacentor nitens (Acari: Ixodidae) is restricted to one generation in the absence of alimentary reinfection on a susceptible equine host.. J Med Entomol 2008 Nov;45(6):1152-5.
- Rodrigues VDS, Garcia MV, Cruz BC, Maciel WG, Zimmermann NP, Koller WW, Barros JC, Andreotti R. Life cycle and parasitic competence of Dermacentor nitens Neumann, 1897 (Acari: Ixodidae) on different animal species.. Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2017 Mar;8(3):379-384.
- Labruna MB, Kasai N, Ferreira F, Faccini JL, Gennari SM. Seasonal dynamics of ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) on horses in the state of São Paulo, Brazil.. Vet Parasitol 2002 Apr 19;105(1):65-77.
- Borges LM, Oliveira PR, Ribeiro MF. Seasonal dynamics of Anocentor nitens on horses in Brazil.. Vet Parasitol 2000 Apr 28;89(3):165-71.
- Borges LMF, Silva CRF da. IXODÍDEOS PARASITOS DE BOVINOS E EQUINOS DA MICRORREGIÁO DE GOIÂNIA, GOIÁS. Revista de Patologia Tropical / Journal of Tropical Pathology 1994;23(1).
- Martins TF, Teixeira RHF, Labruna MB. Ocorrência de carrapatos em animais silvestres recebidos e atendidos pelo Parque Zoológico Municipal Quinzinho de Barros, Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brasil. Brazilian Journal of Veterinary Research and Animal Science 2015 Dec 10;52(4):319–24.
- Nelson SL, Durden LA, Reuter JD. Rhipicephalus microplus and Dermacentor nitens (Acari: Ixodidae) Coparasitize White-Tailed Deer on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands.. J Med Entomol 2017 Sep 1;54(5):1440-1443.
- Guglielmone AA, Robbins RG, Apanaskevich DA, Petney TN, Estrada-Peña A, Horak IG. The Hard Ticks of the World. 2014.
- Santodomingo A, Sierra-Orozco K, Cotes-Perdomo A, Castro LR. Molecular detection of Rickettsia spp., Anaplasma platys and Theileria equi in ticks collected from horses in Tayrona National Park, Colombia.. Exp Appl Acarol 2019 Mar;77(3):411-423.
- Cotes-Perdomo AP, Oviedo Á, Castro LR. Molecular detection of pathogens in ticks associated with domestic animals from the Colombian Caribbean region.. Exp Appl Acarol 2020 Sep;82(1):137-150.
- Barros-Battesti DM, Arzua M, Bechara GH. Carrapatos de importância médico-veterinária da região neotropical: um guia ilustrado para identificação de espécies. 2006.
- Schloss PD, Westcott SL, Ryabin T, Hall JR, Hartmann M, Hollister EB, Lesniewski RA, Oakley BB, Parks DH, Robinson CJ, Sahl JW, Stres B, Thallinger GG, Van Horn DJ, Weber CF. Introducing mothur: open-source, platform-independent, community-supported software for describing and comparing microbial communities.. Appl Environ Microbiol 2009 Dec;75(23):7537-41.
- Kozich JJ, Westcott SL, Baxter NT, Highlander SK, Schloss PD. Development of a dual-index sequencing strategy and curation pipeline for analyzing amplicon sequence data on the MiSeq Illumina sequencing platform.. Appl Environ Microbiol 2013 Sep;79(17):5112-20.
- Maldonado-Ruiz LP, Neupane S, Park Y, Zurek L. The bacterial community of the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum).. Parasit Vectors 2021 Jan 14;14(1):49.
- Dixon P. VEGAN, a package of R functions for community ecology. Journal of Vegetation Science 2003;14(6):927–30.
- Quast C, Pruesse E, Yilmaz P, Gerken J, Schweer T, Yarza P, Peplies J, Glöckner FO. The SILVA ribosomal RNA gene database project: improved data processing and web-based tools.. Nucleic Acids Res 2013 Jan;41(Database issue):D590-6.
- Team RStudio. RStudio: Integrated Development for R. 2020.
- Chen S, Zhou Y, Chen Y, Gu J. fastp: an ultra-fast all-in-one FASTQ preprocessor.. Bioinformatics 2018 Sep 1;34(17):i884-i890.
- Dobin A, Davis CA, Schlesinger F, Drenkow J, Zaleski C, Jha S, Batut P, Chaisson M, Gingeras TR. STAR: ultrafast universal RNA-seq aligner.. Bioinformatics 2013 Jan 1;29(1):15-21.
- Götz S, García-Gómez JM, Terol J, Williams TD, Nagaraj SH, Nueda MJ, Robles M, Talón M, Dopazo J, Conesa A. High-throughput functional annotation and data mining with the Blast2GO suite.. Nucleic Acids Res 2008 Jun;36(10):3420-35.
- Grabherr MG, Haas BJ, Yassour M, Levin JZ, Thompson DA, Amit I, Adiconis X, Fan L, Raychowdhury R, Zeng Q, Chen Z, Mauceli E, Hacohen N, Gnirke A, Rhind N, di Palma F, Birren BW, Nusbaum C, Lindblad-Toh K, Friedman N, Regev A. Full-length transcriptome assembly from RNA-Seq data without a reference genome.. Nat Biotechnol 2011 May 15;29(7):644-52.
- Langmead B, Salzberg SL. Fast gapped-read alignment with Bowtie 2.. Nat Methods 2012 Mar 4;9(4):357-9.
- Kumar S, Stecher G, Li M, Knyaz C, Tamura K. MEGA X: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis across Computing Platforms.. Mol Biol Evol 2018 Jun 1;35(6):1547-1549.
- Suchard MA, Lemey P, Baele G, Ayres DL, Drummond AJ, Rambaut A. Bayesian phylogenetic and phylodynamic data integration using BEAST 1.10.. Virus Evol 2018 Jan;4(1):vey016.
- Felsenstein J. CONFIDENCE LIMITS ON PHYLOGENIES: AN APPROACH USING THE BOOTSTRAP.. Evolution 1985 Jul;39(4):783-791.
- Saitou N, Nei M. The neighbor-joining method: a new method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees.. Mol Biol Evol 1987 Jul;4(4):406-25.
- Tamura K, Nei M, Kumar S. Prospects for inferring very large phylogenies by using the neighbor-joining method.. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2004 Jul 27;101(30):11030-5.
- Tamura K, Nei M. Estimation of the number of nucleotide substitutions in the control region of mitochondrial DNA in humans and chimpanzees.. Mol Biol Evol 1993 May;10(3):512-26.
- Gerhart JG, Moses AS, Raghavan R. A Francisella-like endosymbiont in the Gulf Coast tick evolved from a mammalian pathogen.. Sci Rep 2016 Sep 20;6:33670.
- Gerhart JG, Auguste Dutcher H, Brenner AE, Moses AS, Grubhoffer L, Raghavan R. Multiple Acquisitions of Pathogen-Derived Francisella Endosymbionts in Soft Ticks.. Genome Biol Evol 2018 Feb 1;10(2):607-615.
- Jongejan F, Uilenberg G. The global importance of ticks.. Parasitology 2004;129 Suppl:S3-14.
- Duron O, Binetruy F, Noël V, Cremaschi J, McCoy KD, Arnathau C, Plantard O, Goolsby J, Pérez de León AA, Heylen DJA, Van Oosten AR, Gottlieb Y, Baneth G, Guglielmone AA, Estrada-Peña A, Opara MN, Zenner L, Vavre F, Chevillon C. Evolutionary changes in symbiont community structure in ticks.. Mol Ecol 2017 Jun;26(11):2905-2921.
- CDC. Tickborne Diseases of the United States. 2022.
- Van Treuren W, Ponnusamy L, Brinkerhoff RJ, Gonzalez A, Parobek CM, Juliano JJ, Andreadis TG, Falco RC, Ziegler LB, Hathaway N, Keeler C, Emch M, Bailey JA, Roe RM, Apperson CS, Knight R, Meshnick SR. Variation in the Microbiota of Ixodes Ticks with Regard to Geography, Species, and Sex.. Appl Environ Microbiol 2015 Sep;81(18):6200-9.
- Kumar D, Downs LP, Adegoke A, Machtinger E, Oggenfuss K, Ostfeld RS, Embers M, Karim S. An Exploratory Study on the Microbiome of Northern and Southern Populations of Ixodes scapularis Ticks Predicts Changes and Unique Bacterial Interactions.. Pathogens 2022 Jan 21;11(2).
- Moreno CX, Moy F, Daniels TJ, Godfrey HP, Cabello FC. Molecular analysis of microbial communities identified in different developmental stages of Ixodes scapularis ticks from Westchester and Dutchess Counties, New York.. Environ Microbiol 2006 May;8(5):761-72.
- Clay K, Klyachko O, Grindle N, Civitello D, Oleske D, Fuqua C. Microbial communities and interactions in the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum.. Mol Ecol 2008 Oct;17(19):4371-81.
- Clow KM, Weese JS, Rousseau J, Jardine CM. Microbiota of field-collected Ixodes scapularis and Dermacentor variabilis from eastern and southern Ontario, Canada.. Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2018 Feb;9(2):235-244.
- Ahantarig A, Trinachartvanit W, Baimai V, Grubhoffer L. Hard ticks and their bacterial endosymbionts (or would be pathogens).. Folia Microbiol (Praha) 2013 Sep;58(5):419-28.
- Yeni DK, Büyük F, Ashraf A, Shah MSUD. Tularemia: a re-emerging tick-borne infectious disease.. Folia Microbiol (Praha) 2021 Feb;66(1):1-14.
- Travanty NV, Ponnusamy L, Kakumanu ML, Nicholson WL, Apperson CS. Diversity and structure of the bacterial microbiome of the American dog tick, Dermacentor variabilis, is dominated by the endosymbiont Francisella. 2019;12.
- Zhang YK, Yu ZJ, Wang D, Bronislava V, Branislav P, Liu JZ. The bacterial microbiome of field-collected Dermacentor marginatus and Dermacentor reticulatus from Slovakia.. Parasit Vectors 2019 Jun 27;12(1):325.
- Duan DY, Liu GH, Cheng TY. Microbiome analysis of the saliva and midgut from partially or fully engorged female adult Dermacentor silvarum ticks in China.. Exp Appl Acarol 2020 Apr;80(4):543-558.
- Sperling J, MacDonald Z, Normandeau J, Merrill E, Sperling F, Magor K. Within-population diversity of bacterial microbiomes in winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus).. Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2020 Nov;11(6):101535.
- Gonçalves DD, Carreira T, Nunes M, Benitez A, Lopes-Mori FM, Vidotto O, de Freitas JC, Vieira ML. First record of Borrelia burgdorferi B31 strain in Dermacentor nitens ticks in the northern region of Parana (Brazil).. Braz J Microbiol 2013;44(3):883-7.
- Ibal JC, Pham HQ, Park CE, Shin JH. Information about variations in multiple copies of bacterial 16S rRNA genes may aid in species identification.. PLoS One 2019;14(2):e0212090.
- Scoles GA. Phylogenetic analysis of the Francisella-like endosymbionts of Dermacentor ticks.. J Med Entomol 2004 May;41(3):277-86.
- Kumar D, Sharma SR, Adegoke A, Kennedy A, Tuten HC, Li AY, Karim S. Recently Evolved Francisella-Like Endosymbiont Outcompetes an Ancient and Evolutionarily Associated Coxiella-Like Endosymbiont in the Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum) Linked to the Alpha-Gal Syndrome.. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 2022;12:787209.
Citations
This article has been cited 0 times.Use Nutrition Calculator
Check if your horse's diet meets their nutrition requirements with our easy-to-use tool Check your horse's diet with our easy-to-use tool
Talk to a Nutritionist
Discuss your horse's feeding plan with our experts over a free phone consultation Discuss your horse's diet over a phone consultation
Submit Diet Evaluation
Get a customized feeding plan for your horse formulated by our equine nutritionists Get a custom feeding plan formulated by our nutritionists