Susceptibility of dairy cows to subacute ruminal acidosis is reflected in both prepartum and postpartum bacteria as well as odd- and branched-chain fatty acids in feces

Table 5 Average relative abundance (%) of bacterial groups in feces sampled on d 7 prepartum that differ among groups of dairy cows varying in SARA susceptibility over the first 3 postpartum weeks¹

Phylum	Family	Genus	SU²	MO²	UN²	SEM³	P_adj⁴
Bacteroidota			30.5	26.7	29.1	1.19	0.227
	p-2534-18B5_ gut_group	p-2534-18B5_ gut_group	0.447^a	0.233^b	0.553^a	0.0751	< 0.001
Firmicutes			64.3	66.7	66.0	1.07	0.385
	Lachnospiraceae	UCG-001	0.185^b	0.181^b	0.335^a	0.0234	0.009
	Ruminococcaceae	Ruminococcus	0.925^b	1.30^a	0.781^c	0.0222	0.024
Verrucomicrobia			1.42	1.31	0.700	0.1355	0.121
Spirochaetota			1.61	2.51	1.54	0.193	0.542

¹Only differentially abundant taxa with relative abundance > 0.01% are included here. Phyla with a relative abundance ≥1% are also presented here, even if they did not differ among groups
²Postpartum grouping: susceptible group (SU; n = 10): mean or median of time below pH 6 of at least 180 min/d; moderately susceptible group (MS; n = 7): 60 min/d < mean time of pH below 6 < 180 min/d and median time of pH below 6 < 180 min/d; moderately unsusceptible group (MU; n = 11): 10 min/d < mean time of pH below 6 < 60 min/d and median time of pH below 6 ≤ 30 min/d; unsusceptible group (UN; n = 10): median time pH below 6 = 0 min/d and mean time pH below 6 < 10 min/d. Due to early calving, 10 cows were from the SU group, the UN-group only contained nine animals in the prepartum period and MS (n = 3) and MU (n = 7) cows were merged into a single group (MO, n = 10)
³SEM = standard error of the mean
⁴P_adj = P value adjusted for false discovery rate at 5%
^a,bMeans within a row with different superscripts differ significantly (P ≤ 0.05)

ISSN: 2049-1891