Road Transport & the Equine Cecal Microbiota

Six cecally cannulated horses were randomly assigned to either a travel group or a control group, with three horses in each group.

All horses received the same basal concentrate diet together with mixed grass and alfalfa forage supplied at 1.2% of body weight.

Travel horses were transported from the Southern Illinois University Equine Center to an unfamiliar location.

They were then stalled under conditions designed to simulate a weekend horse show before being transported back to the Equine Center.

Control horses remained at the Equine Center throughout the study.

The study lasted six days.

Cecal fluid was repeatedly sampled throughout baseline, transportation and post-travel phases, allowing microbial changes over time to be compared both within horses and between the travel and control groups.

Cecal fluid was collected directly from six cecally cannulated horses.

Samples were collected on a six-hour rotating schedule, providing four samples per horse per day throughout the six-day study.

Cecal bacterial DNA was extracted from the samples and the bacterial community was characterized using 16S rRNA sequencing.

Sequence data were analyzed using QIIME 1.8.0.

Microbial data were grouped into baseline, transportation and post-travel phases.

The researchers examined alpha diversity, which describes microbial diversity within an individual sample, and beta diversity, which describes differences in microbial community composition between samples.

Changes in individual bacterial taxa at genus and phylum level were also evaluated.

Statistical analyses were conducted using mixed models with significance set at p < 0.05.