Incorporating Microbiomes for Prediction of Methane in New Zealand Sheep

Dr Melanie Hess is a Research Fellow based at the Department of Animal Science at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln

ABSTRACT
Consideration of the sustainability of meat production has led to increased interest in environmentally important traits, such as methane emissions. The rumen microbiome plays an important role in feed digestion, and a byproduct of this process is methane. We profiled ~4,500 sheep rumen samples using high-throughput, restriction enzyme-reduced representation sequencing. Incorporating metagenome profiles into genomic prediction models for methane emissions increased prediction accuracy compared to genetics alone, even when considering profiles collected at different ages, or on different feeds. This approach shows the potential to use rumen metagenomic profiles for selection purposes in a practical, agricultural setting.

PROFILE
Dr Melanie Hess is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA. She completed her PhD in Animal Breeding and Genetics at Iowa State University with Dr Dorian Garrick. She subsequently did a postdoc at AgResearch, New Zealand where she established a workflow for rumen microbial profiling using restriction enzyme reduced representation sequencing and incorporated those profiles into predictions of environmentally and economically important traits in sheep. She is currently working on the genomics of complex traits in beef cattle. Melanie’s interests are focused on modelling complex data in a way that can be practically used in industry.

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