Abstract: Diet is a key driver of equine hindgut microbial community structure and composition. The aim of this study was to characterize shifts in the fecal microbiota of grazing horses during transitions between forage types within integrated warm- (WSG) and cool-season grass (CSG) rotational grazing systems (IRS). Eight mares were randomly assigned to two IRS containing mixed cool-season grass and one of two warm-season grasses: bermudagrass [Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.] or crabgrass [Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop.]. Fecal samples were collected during transitions from CSG to WSG pasture sections (C-W) and WSG to CSG (W-C) on days 0, 2, 4, and 6 following pasture rotation and compared using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Results: Regardless of IRS or transition (C-W vs. W-C), species richness was greater on day 4 and 6 in comparison to day 0 (P < 0.05). Evenness, however, did not differ by day. Weighted UniFrac also did not differ by day, and the most influential factor impacting β-diversity was the individual horse (R2 ≥ 0.24; P = 0.0001). Random forest modeling was unable to accurately predict days within C-W and W-C, but could predict the individual horse based on microbial composition (accuracy: 0.92 ± 0.05). Only three differentially abundant bacterial co-abundance groups (BCG) were identified across days within all C-W and W-C for both IRS (W ≥ 126). The BCG differing by day for all transitions included amplicon sequence variants (ASV) assigned to bacterial groups with known fibrolytic and butyrate-producing functions including members of Lachnospiraceae, Clostridium sensu stricto 1, Anaerovorax the NK4A214 group of Oscillospiraceae, and Sarcina maxima. In comparison, 38 BCG were identified as differentially abundant by horse (W ≥ 704). The ASV in these groups were most commonly assigned to genera associated with degradation of structural carbohydrates included Rikenellaceae RC9 gut group, Treponema, Christensenellaceae R-7 group, and the NK4A214 group of Oscillospiraceae. Fecal pH also did not differ by day. Conclusions: Overall, these results demonstrated a strong influence of individual horse on the fecal microbial community, particularly on the specific composition of fiber-degraders. The equine fecal microbiota were largely stable across transitions between forages within IRS suggesting that the equine gut microbiota adjusted at the individual level to the subtle dietary changes imposed by these transitions. This adaptive capacity indicates that horses can be managed in IRS without inducing gastrointestinal dysfunction.
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.
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.
The research article focuses on the impact of different types of grazing grass on the fecal microbiota of horses. The study finds that individual variations in horses have greater influence on the microbial communities than the grass type. Moreover, the study suggests that the equine gut microbiota can adapt to dietary changes imposed by different grass types, implying possible health stability in horses under different grazing systems.
Research Goals and Methodology
The study aims to understand how the fecal microbiota of horses changes when they switch between different types of grass within rotational grazing systems.
Eight mares were used in the study, rotating between mixed cool-season and warm-season grass in integrated grazing systems.
Fecal samples were collected during these transitions, specifically from cool-season grass to warm-season grass and vice versa.
The differences in fecal microbiota were studied using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, a popular method in molecular biology that enables the identification and comparison of bacteria from complex microbial communities.
Research Findings
The study observed an increase in species richness, the number of different species present in a particular area, on day 4 and 6 of transition in comparison to day 0.
However, species evenness, a measure of biodiversity that shows the relative abundance of different species in an area, did not show any significant change over the days.
The study found the individual horse to be the most influential factor affecting β-diversity, a measure of the total species diversity at a landscape level.
Three noticeably abundant bacterial co-abundance groups (BCG) were identified across all transitions, including members of Lachnospiraceae, Clostridium, Anaerovorax, and Sarcina maxima, which are known for their fibrolytic and butyrate-producing functions.
38 BCG were found to be differentially abundant by horse, implicating significant individual variability in the gut microbiota of horses. The bacteria involved in these BCG primarily degrade structural carbohydrates.
The fecal pH of the horses remained unaffected by the type of grass they consumed.
Conclusion
The acquired results pointed towards a strong influence of individual horse over its fecal microbiota, particularly the specific composition of fiber-degraders.
The transition between forages within integrated rotational grazing systems (IRS) showed no major synchronic disturbance in the fecal microbial community, suggesting an adaptive response to subtle dietary changes.
This resilience and adaptive capacity indicate that horses can be managed in different grazing systems without causing any gastrointestinal disorders, providing essential insights for better horse nutrition management strategies.
Cite This Article
APA
Weinert-Nelson JR, Biddle AS, Williams CA.
(2022).
Fecal microbiome of horses transitioning between warm-season and cool-season grass pasture within integrated rotational grazing systems.
Anim Microbiome, 4(1), 41.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s42523-022-00192-x
Tracy BF, Maughan M, Post N, Faulkner DB. Integrating annual and perennial warm-season grasses in a temperate grazing system.. Crop Sci 2010;50(5):2171–2177.
Ritz KE, Heins BJ, Moon R, Sheaffer C, Weyers SL. Forage yield and nutritive value of cool-season and warm-season forages for grazing organic dairy cattle.. Agronomy 2020;10(12):1963.
Teutsch C. Warm-season annual grasses for summer forage.. Publication 418-004. Communication and marketing, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ.: Blacksburg; 2006.
. Teff KS (Eragrostis teff (Zucc.)). Trotter. Promoting the Conservation and use of the under utilized crops.. vol. 12. Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Garersleben/International Plant Genetic Resource Institute. Rome, Italy; 1997.
Taliaferro CM. Breeding forage bermudagrass for the US Transition zone.. Proceedings 59th southern pasture and forage crop improvement conference, Philadelphia, MS; 2005. p. 11–13.
Ditsch DC, Smith SR, Lacefield GD. Bermudagrass: a summer forage in Kentucky.. Publication #AGR-48. University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Lexington, KY; 2011.
Venable E, Kerley MS, Raub R. Assessment of equine fecal microbial profiles during and after a colic episode using pyrosequencing.. J Equine Vet Sci 2013;33:347.
Weese JS, Holcombe SJ, Embertson RM, Kurtz KA, Roessner HA, Jalali M, Wismer SE. Changes in the faecal microbiota ofmares precede the development of post partum colic.. Equine Vet J 2015;47:641–649.
United States Department of Agriculture. Lameness and laminitis in US horses.. USDA: APHIS: US, CEAH, National Animal Health Monitoring System. United States Department of Agriculture, Washington DC; 2000.
United States Department of Agriculture. Baseline reference of equine health and management in the United States, 2015.. USDA: APHIS: US, CEAH, National Animal Health Monitoring System. US Department of Agriculture, Washington DC. 2016.
Troya L, Blanco J, Romero I, Re M. Comparison of the colic incidence in a horse population with or without inclusion of germinated barley in the diet.. Equine Vet Educ 2020;32:28–32.
Zhang C, Zhang M, Wang S, Han R, Cao Y, Hua W, Mao Y, Zhang X, Pang X, Wei C. Interactions between gut microbiota, host genetics and diet relevant to development of metabolic syndromes in mice.. ISME J 2010;4(2):232.
Zhang C, Li S, Yang L, Huang P, Li W, Wang S, Zhao G, Zhang M, Pang X, Yan Z. Structural modulation of gut microbiota in life-long calorie-restricted mice.. Nat Commun 2013;4:2163.
Chatterton NJ, Harrison PA, Bennett JH, Asay KH. Carbohydrate partitioning in 185 accessions of gramineae grown under warm and cool temperatures.. J Plant Physiol 1989;134(2):169–179.
Bolyen E, Rideout JR, Dillon MR, Bokulich NA, Abnet CC, Al-Ghalith GA, Alexander H, Alm EJ, Arumugam M, Asnicar F, Bai Y. Reproducible, interactive, scalable and extensible microbiome data science using QIIME 2.. Nat Biotechnol 2019;37(8):852–857.
Pelletier S, Tremblay GF, Bertrand A, Belanger G, Castonguay Y, Michaud R. Drying procedures affect non-structural carbohydrates and other nutritive value attributes in forage samples.. Anim Feed Sci Technol 2010;157:139–150.
Respondek F, Goachet A, Julliand RFV. Effects of short-chain fructo-oligosaccharides on the microbial and biochemical profile of different segments of the gastro-intestinal tract in horses.. Pferdeheilkunde 2008;23(2):146.
De Fombelle A, Julliand V, Drogoul C, Jacotot E. Feeding and microbial disorders in horses: 1-effects of an abrupt incorporation of two levels of barley in a hay diet on microbial profile and activities.. J Equine Vet Sci 2001;21:439–445.
Pan F, Zhang L, Li M, Hu Y, Zeng B, Yuan H, Zhao L, Zhang C. Predominant gut Lactobacillus murinus strain mediates anti-inflammaging effects in calorie-restricted mice.. Microbiome 2018;6(1):1–17.
Zhai R, Xue X, Zhang L, Yang X, Zhao L, Zhang C. Strain-specific anti-inflammatory properties of two Akkermansia muciniphila strains on chronic colitis in mice.. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 2019;9:239.
Wu G, Zhao N, Zhang C, Lam YY, Zhao L. Guild-based analysis for understanding gut microbiome in human health and diseases.. Genome Med 2021;13(1):1–12.
Zhang C, Yin A, Li H, Wang R, Wu G, Shen J, Zhang M, Wang L, Hou Y, Ouyang H, Zhang Y. Dietary modulation of gut microbiota contributes to alleviation of both genetic and simple obesity in children.. EBioMedicine 2015;2(8):968–984.
Zhao L, Zhang F, Ding X, Wu G, Lam YY, Wang X, Fu H, Xue X, Lu C, Ma J, Yu L. Gut bacteria selectively promoted by dietary fibers alleviate type 2 diabetes.. Science 2018;359(6380):1151–1156.
Chen T, Liu AB, Sun S, Ajami NJ, Ross MC, Wang H, Zhang L, Reuhl K, Kobayashi K, Onishi JC, Zhao L, Yang CS. Green tea polyphenols modify the gut microbiome in db/db mice as co-abundance grouips correlating with the blood glucose lowering effect.. Mol Nutr Food Res 2019;63(8):180164.
Proudman A, Darby C, Escalona E. Faecal microbiome of the Thoroughbred racehorse and its response to dietary amylase supplementation.. Equine Vet J 2014;46(S46):35.
Smits SA, Marcobal A, Higginbottom S, Sonnenburg JL, Kashyap PC. Individualized responses of gut microbiota to dietary intervention modeled in humanized mice.. mSystems 2016;1(5):e00098.
Goodrich JK, Waters JL, Poole AC, Sutter JL, Koren O, Blekhman R, Beaumont M, Van Treuren W, Knight R, Bell JT, Spector TD, Clark AG, Ley RE. Human genetics shape the gut microbiome.. Cell 2014;159(4):789–799.
Svartström O, Alneberg J, Terrapon N, Lombard V, de Bruijn I, Malmsten J, Dalin A, Muller EEL, Shah P, Wilmes P, Henrissat B, Aspeborg H, Andersson AF. Ninety-nine de novo assembled genomes from the moose (Alces alces) rumen microbiome provide new insights into microbial plant biomass degradation.. ISME J 2017;11:2538–2551.
Tokuda G, Mikaelyan A, Fukui C, Watanabe H, Funishima M, Brune A. Fiber-associated spirochetes are major agents of hemicellulose degradation in the hindgut of wood-feeding higher termites.. PNAS 2018;115(51):E11996–E12004.
Ren Q, Si H, Yan X, Liu C, Ding L, Long R, Li Z, Qiu Q. Bacterial communities in the solid, liquid, dorsal, and ventral epithelium fractions of yak (Bos grunniens) rumen.. Microbiologyopen 2020;9(2):e963.
Vital M, Jairong G, Rizzo R, Harrison T, Tiedje JM. Diet is a major factor governing the fecal butyrate-producing community structure across Mammalia, Aves and Reptilia.. ISME J 2015;9:832–843.
Gharechahi J, Vahidi MF, Ding X-Z, Han J-L, Salekdeh GH. Temporal changes in microbial communities attached to forages with different lignocellulosic compositions in cattle rumen.. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 2020.
Goodrich JK, Davenport ER, Waters JL, Clark AG, Ley RE. Cross-species comparisons of host genetic associations with the microbiome.. Science 2016;352:532–535.
Lim MY, You HJ, Yoon HS, Kwon B, Lee JY, Lee S, Song Y, Lee K, Sung J, Ko G. The effect of heritability and host genetics on the gut microbiota and metabolic syndrome.. Gut 2017;66:1031–1038.
Ilmberger N, Güllert S, Dannenberg J, Rabausch U, Torres J, Wemheuer B, Alawi M, Poehlein A, Chow J, Turaev D, Rattei T. A comparative metagenome survey of the fecal microbiota of a breast- an a plant-fed Asian elephant reveals an unexpectedly high diversity of glycoside hydrolase family enzymes.. PLoS ONE 2014;9(9):e106707.
Li Y, Hu X, Yang S, Zhou J, Zhang T, Qi L, Sun X, Fan M, Xu S, Cha M, Zhang M. Comparative analysis of the gut microbiota composition between captive and wild forest musk deer.. Front Microbiol 2017;8:1705.
Huang Q, Holman BD, Alexander T, Hu T, Jin L, Xu Z, McAllister TA, Acharya S, Zhao G, Wang Y. Fecal microbiota of lambs fed purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea Vent) and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). Arch Microbiol 2018;200(1):137–145.
Li Y, Zhang K, Yang L, Kai L, Defu H, Wronski T. Community composition and diversity of intestinal microbiota in captive and re-introduced Prezwalski's Horse (Equus ferus prezwalskii). Front Microbiol 2019;10:1821.
Graf J. The family Rikenellaceae.. In: Rosenberg E, DeLong EF, Lory S, Stackebrandt E, Thompson F, editors. The prokaryotes. Berlin: Springer Berlin Heidelberg; 2014. pp. 857–859.
Asma Z, Sylvie C, Laurent C, Jérôme M, Christophe K, Oliver B, Annabelle TM, Francis E. Microbial ecology of the rumen evaluated by 454 GS FLX pyrosequencing is affected by starch and oil supplementation of diets.. FEMS Microbio Ecol 2013;83(2):504–514.
Amato KR, Leigh SR, Kent A, Mackie RI, Yeoman CJ, Stumpf RM, Wilson BA, Nelson KE, White BA, Garber PA. The gut microbiota appears to compensate for seasonal diet variation in the wild black howler monkey (Alouatta pigra). Microb Ecol 2015;69(2):434–443.
Kagan IA, Kirch BH, Thatcher CD, Strickland JR, Teutsch CD, Elvinger F, Pleasant RS. Seasonal and diurnal variation in simple sugar and fructan composition of orchardgrass pasture and hay in the Piedmont region of the United States.. J Equine Vet Sci 2011;31(8):488–497.
Kagan IA, Kirch BH, Thatcher CD, Teutsch CD, Elvinger F, Shepherd DM, Pleasant S. Seasonal and diurnal changes in starch content and sugar profiles of Bermudagrass in the Piedmont region of the United States.. J Equine Veterinary Sci 2011;31(9):521–529.
Biddle AS, Stewart L, Blanchard J, Leschine S. Untangling the genetic basis of fibrolytic specialization by Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae in Diverse Gut Communities.. Diversity 2013;5(3):627–640.
Lawson PA, Rainey FA. Proposal to restrict the genus Clostridium Prazmowski to Clostridium butyricum and related species.. Int J Syst Evol 2016;66(2):1009–1016.
Office of the New Jersey State climatologist at Rutgers University: Rutgers New Jersey weather network. https://www.njweather.org/data (2021). Accessed 12 Jul 2021.
Caporaso JG, Lauber CL, Walters WA, Berg-Lyons D, Huntley J, Fierer N, Owens M, Betley J, Fraser L, Bauer M, Gormley N. Ultra-high-throughput microbial community analysis on the Illumina HiSeq and MiSeq platforms.. ISME J 2012;6:1621–1624.
R Development Core Team. R: A language and environment for statistical computing.. 2010. http://cran.r-project.org.
McDonald D, Clemente JC, Kuczynski J, Rideout JR, Stombaugh J, Wendel D, Wilke A, Huse S, Hufnagle J, Meyer F, Knight R. The Biological observation matrix (BIOM) format or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the ome-ome.. Gigascience 2012;1(1):2047–2217.
Lane DJ. 16S/23S rRNA Sequencing.. In: Stakebrandt E, Goodfellow M, editors. Nucleic acid techniques in bacterial systematics. New York City: John Wiley and Sons; 1991. pp. 115–175.
Price MN, Dehal PS, Arkin AP. FastTree 2–approximately maximum-likelihood trees for large alignments.. PLoS ONE 2010;5(3):e9490.
McKinney W. Data structures for statistical computing in python.. In: van der Walt S, Millman J, editors. Proceedings of the 9th python in science conference; 2010. p. 51–6.
Weiss S, Xu ZZ, Peddada S, Amir A, Bittinger K, Gonzalez A, Lozupone C, Zaneveld JR, Vázquez-Baeza Y, Birmingham A, Hyde ER. Normalization and microbial differential abundance strategies depend upon data characteristics.. Microbiome 2017;5(1):1–18.
Lozupone CA, Hamady M, Kelley ST, Knight R. Quantitative and uqalitative β diversity measures lead to different insights into factors that structure microbial communities.. Appl Environ Microbiol 2007;73(5):1576–1585.
Hamady M, Lozupone C, Knight R. Fast unifrac: facilitating high-throughput phylogenetic analyses of microbial communities including analysis of pyrosequening and PhyloChip data.. ISME J 2010;4(1):17–27.
Chang Q, Luan Y, Sun F. Variance adjusted weighted UniFrac: a powerful beta diversity measure for comparing communities based on phylogeny.. BMC Bioinform 2011.
Hagberg AA, Shult DA, Swart PJ. Exploring network structure, dynamics, and function using NetworkX.. In: Varoquaux G, Vaught T, Millman J, editors. Proceedings of the 7th Python in Science Conference; 2008. p. 11–15.
Shaffer M, Thurimella K, Lozupone CA. SCNIC: Sparse correlation network investigation for compositional data.. bioRxiv 2020.
Bokulich N, Dillon M, Bolyen E, Kaehler BD, Huttley GA, Caporaso JG. q2-sample-classifier: machine-learning tools for microbiome classification and regression.. J Open Source Softw 2018;3(30):934.
Pedregosa F, Varoquaux G, Gramfort A, Michel B, Thirion B, Grisel O, Blondel M, Prettenhofer P, Weiss R, Dubourg V, Vanderplas J, Passos A, Cournapeau D, Brucher M, Perrot M, Duchesnay E. Scikit-learn: machine learning in Python.. J Mach Learn Res 2011;12:2825–2830.
Mandal S, Van Treuren W, White RA, Eggesbø M, Knight R, Peddada SD. Microb Ecol Health Dis. 2015;26(1):27663.
Pruesse E, Quast C, Knittel K, Fuchs BM, Ludwig K, Peplies J, Glockner FO. SILVA: a comprehensive online resource for quality checked and aligned ribosomal RNA sequence data compatible with ARB.. Nucl Acids Res 2007;35:7188–7196.
Dunay E, Hirji I, Owens LA, Marah K, Anderson N, Ruiz M, Atencia R, Rukundo J, Rosati AG, Cole MF, Emery Thompson M, Negrey JD, Angedakin S, Elfenbein JR, Goldberg TL. Distribution and prevalence of Sarcina troglodytae in chimpanzees and the environment throughout Africa. J Med Microbiol 2025 Jul;74(7).
Deng J, Wang X, Yan C, Huang Z, Luo H, Dai C, Huang X, Huang Y, Fu Q. Dietary purslane modulates gut microbiota and fecal metabolites in aging rats. Front Microbiol 2025;16:1549853.
Tang BB, Su CX, Wen N, Zhang Q, Chen JH, Liu BB, Wang YQ, Huang CQ, Hu YL. FMT and TCM to treat diarrhoeal irritable bowel syndrome with induced spleen deficiency syndrome- microbiomic and metabolomic insights. BMC Microbiol 2024 Oct 26;24(1):433.
Sha Y, Liu X, Li X, Wang Z, Shao P, Jiao T, He Y, Zhao S. Succession of rumen microbiota and metabolites across different reproductive periods in different sheep breeds and their impact on the growth and development of offspring lambs. Microbiome 2024 Sep 12;12(1):172.
Wang Y, Guo H, Li X, Chen X, Peng L, Zhu T, Sun P, Liu Y. Peracetic acid (PAA)-based pretreatment effectively improves medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) production from sewage sludge. Environ Sci Ecotechnol 2024 Jul;20:100355.
Wang D, Chen L, Tang G, Yu J, Chen J, Li Z, Cao Y, Lei X, Deng L, Wu S, Guan LL, Yao J. Multi-omics revealed the long-term effect of ruminal keystone bacteria and the microbial metabolome on lactation performance in adult dairy goats. Microbiome 2023 Sep 29;11(1):215.
Liu S, Wang K, Lin S, Zhang Z, Cheng M, Hu S, Hu H, Xiang J, Chen F, Li G, Si H. Comparison of the Effects between Tannins Extracted from Different Natural Plants on Growth Performance, Antioxidant Capacity, Immunity, and Intestinal Flora of Broiler Chickens. Antioxidants (Basel) 2023 Feb 10;12(2).