Cited by 100Ruminant Nutrition and Digestive PhysiologyAnaerobic Digestion and Biogas ProductionAgriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact

Archaeal abundance in post-mortem ruminal digesta may help predict methane emissions from beef cattle

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Wallace, R. John, Rooke, John A., Duthie, Carol-Anne, Hyslop, Jimmy J., Ross, David W., McKain, Nest, de Souza, Shirley Motta, Snelling, Timothy J. +2 more·2014·Scientific Reports

Abstract

Methane produced from 35 Aberdeen-Angus and 33 Limousin cross steers was measured in respiration chambers. Each group was split to receive either a medium- or high-concentrate diet. Ruminal digesta samples were subsequently removed to investigate correlations between methane emissions and the rumen microbial community, as measured by qPCR of 16S or 18S rRNA genes. Diet had the greatest influence on methane emissions. The high-concentrate diet resulted in lower methane emissions (P < 0.001) than the medium-concentrate diet. Methane was correlated, irrespective of breed, with the abundance of archaea (R = 0.39), bacteria (-0.47), protozoa (0.45), Bacteroidetes (-0.37) and Clostridium Cluster XIVa (-0.35). The archaea:bacteria ratio provided a stronger correlation (0.49). A similar correlation was found with digesta samples taken 2-3 weeks later at slaughter. This finding could help enable greenhouse gas emissions of large animal cohorts to be predicted from samples taken conveniently in the abattoir.

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Crossref · 10.1038/srep05892

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  • Several studies revealed a strong correlation between CH4 yields and archaea:bacteria ratio.

    “Several studies revealed a strong correlation between CH4 yields and archaea: bacteria ratio (Wallace et al., 2014), and a similar finding was found in the present study.”

    From Comparative Analysis of the Microbiota Between Sheep Rumen and Rabbit Cecum Provides New Insight Into Their Differential Methane Production (2018) · cites this paper as Wallace et al., 2014

    The Results report a correlation between methane emissions and the archaea:bacteria ratio, and the Discussion calls it strong within the high-concentrate diet. The paper reports no significant correlation for the medium-concentrate diet. It is one study of methane emissions in beef steers, not evidence that several studies found a strong correlation with CH4 yield. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • The ratio of bacteria:archaea reflects methane output from the animal, with positive correlations reported in a few studies, but results are not consistent.

    “It has been suggested also that the ratio of bacteria:archaea reflects methane output from the animal with positive correlations reported in a few studies (Wallace et al., 2014; Auffret et al., 2017b), but results are not consistent (Tapio et al., 2017).”

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Authors
Wallace, R. J., Rooke, J. A., Duthie, C.-A., Hyslop, J. J., Ross, D. W., McKain, N., de Souza, S. M., Snelling, T. J., Waterhouse, A., & Roehe, R.
Affiliations
  • University of Aberdeen (GB)
  • Scotland's Rural College (GB)
Corresponding author
Wallace, R. John
Venue
Scientific Reports
Published
2014-07-31
Volume
4
Issue
1
Pages
5892-5892
ISSN
2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2103161395
Cited by
100
References
35
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 1
FWCI
19.94
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Aberdeen University Research Archive (Aberdeen University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Funders
  • Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division
  • Scottish Government
  • Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK Government
  • Scotland’s Rural College
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Ruminant Nutrition and Digestive Physiology
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Production
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
Keywords
archaea, ruminal digesta, enteric methane, beef cattle, rumen microbiota, concentrate diet, Angus cattle, Limousin, Bacteroidetes, Clostridium cluster XIVa, rumen protozoa
MeSH terms
Animals, Archaea, Cattle, Male, Methane, RNA, Ribosomal, 16S, Rumen, Greenhouse Effect, RNA, Archaeal, Bacteroidetes, Molecular Typing, Microbiota

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