Metagenomics Assay of Gut Microbiota and Impacts on Body Weights of Improved Nigerian Indigenous Chickens (Alpha Funaab) Raised in Uyo, Nigeria

A total of 200 Day Old Chicks (DOC) of improved Nigerian Indigenous Chickens (NIC) (Alpha Funaab) raised for 8weeks at the teaching and research farm of the department of Animal science, University of Uyo, were used in this study. This study metagenomically analyzed the microbiota obtained from the gut of the improved Nigerian Chickens. The study revealed that ceacal microbial composition were dominated by two phyla - the firmicutes and bacteriodates. Firmicutes was the most abundant microbes in the layer line (24.9%) followed by bacteriodates (13.7%). In broiler, bacteriodates was the most dominant (22.4%), followed by firmicutes (20.4%). Again, in the layer line, body weight BWT showed a strong correlation with Bacteroidia (0.977) Bacilli (0.944) and Clostridia (0.861) whereas in the broiler line, BWT had a week but positive correlation of 0.287 with Bacteroidia and a strong negative correlation of -0.099 with Bacilli and Clostridia (-0.967). This metagenomic approach in gastrointestinal microbiota studies has enhanced our understanding of the role of microbes in relations to growth.