Microbial ecology and nutrient fermentation in the upper gastrointestinal tract of poultry

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The gastrointestinal tract of animals is colonized by an abundant and diverse community of normal non-pathogenic bacteria which have both beneficial and detrimental effects on their host. Examples of benefits to the host include exclusion of pathogens and synthesis of essential vitamins. Detrimental effects on the host include microbial fermentation or competition for certain selected nutrients, increasing the requirement for certain nutrients and reducing digestive and absorptive capacity. In poultry, the largest bacterial populations are found in the crop, an out pouching of the oesophagus in the upper tract and in paired blind sacs near the end of the tract termed ceca. This project will focus on determining the number and species of bacteria in the crop of poultry using molecular techniques based on nucleotide sequence of genomic DNA. We will determine how differences in feeding strategies and diet composition affect the composition, number and fermentation activity of bacteria in the crop. Most commercial animal diets are supplemented with a number of relatively expensive ingredients such as amino acids in order to meet their nutrient requirements. Since bacteria of the crop have opportunity to utilize the nutrients by fermentation before the host can absorb them for their own use, we will determine the extent to which this occurs and impact of changing feeding strategies.