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FRIMEDBIO-Fri prosj.st. med.,helse,biol

SeaCow: Promoting efficient, low emitting cows through nutritional manipulation of the rumen microbiome

Alternative title: SeaCow: Metanreduksjon og økt produktivitet hos kyr gjennom ernæringsbasert manipulering av det mikrobielle samfunnet i kuvomma

Awarded: NOK 8.0 mill.

There are 1.5 billion cows on this planet, that together burp out 5% of the global greenhouse-gas emission. To reduce the carbon footprint from agriculture, while also producing enough food to feed the increasing human population we are in urgent need for new solutions to ensure a sustainable and secure food supply. This has resulted in an increased research interest on finding strategies to promote a more environmental-friendly livestock, and several studies have suggested that certain types of seaweeds can be a potential solution. The reason is that seaweed, and especially the red seaweed, produce a compound called bromoform that inhibits one of the key enzymes is the methane synthesis that occur during microbial degradation of plant fiber in the rumen. In addition to methane being a highly potent greenhouse gas, microbial methane production results in an energy loss of up to 10% for the host animal. Thus, one of the hypotheses is that a reduced methane production results in an increased production of volatile fatty acids that the cow can utilize as metabolic building blocks. While the methane-reducing effect of bromoform is known, we still lack a holistic understanding on how this affects the complex microbial community and the underlying metabolic networks in the rumen. In the SeaCow project, the red seaweed Asparagopsis taxiformis was added as a feed supplement to Norwegian Red dairy cows (NRF). This resulted in ~22% reduction of enteric methane emission, and a shift in the production of volatile fatty acids. We are now exploring the underlying metabolic functions within the rumen microbial community when production of methane is inhibited, and how this affects animal performance. Based on studies demonstrating the effect of bromoform, we aim to generate new and fundamental knowledge on how nutritional manipulation strategies affects microbiome metabolism and microbiome-host interaction within the rumen ecosystem. This information will result in new strategies for manipulation of the rumen microbiome through feed additives, such as seaweed, to promote an efficient and low emitting livestock.

According to UN forecasts, there will 10 billion people to feed by 2050, which is a major challenge. To securely meet this challenge, society must produce more food whilst using fewer resources and reducing its carbon footprint. Agriculture is the world's single largest provider of food, yet it is also accountable for a significant part of our anthropogenic carbon emissions, including production of methane gas by cows. Nutritional manipulation of methane production is considered a feasible strategy that, however, still is relatively unexplored and where rationalization is still far off. Notably, feeding seaweed to cows has recently emerged as a promising strategy for reducing methane production. Understanding of this effect requires a holistic insight into the maze of metabolic routes that constitutes the rumen microbiome, an elaborate community comprised of bacteria, archaea, viruses and eukaryotes. Despite the rumen microbiome being key in solving the cow-methane problem, definitive links between what the cows eat, their microbiome, their methane emissions and their productivity remain largely unknown. SeaCow's main objectives are to characterize the microbiome-host interactions that underlie the metabolic transformation during inhibition of enteric methane production in cows using novel seaweed-based nutritional manipulation strategies. Animal feeding trials will elucidate the real effect of seaweed additives on Norwegian Red cattle, whereas a unique state-of-the-art characterization of the rumen microbiome will model metabolic routes and keystone microbial populations that drive host performance and methane emissions. Importantly, this approach entails focus on emerging less studied members of the rumen microbiota (such as eukaryotes). Ultimately, the outcome of the SeaCow project will enhance our understanding of the feed-microbiome-host axis that is crucial to optimize feeding regimes in agriculture to promote an efficient and low methane emitting livestock.

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FRIMEDBIO-Fri prosj.st. med.,helse,biol

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