27 Bacterial Community Diversity in Fresh Extended Boar Semen

Abstract Status of bacterial diversity within the male seminal microbiome has previously been linked to fertility status in mammals. However, minimal research focused on reproductive boar semen. The objective this study was analyze communities fresh extended semen samples 1) between studs, 2) over 5 consecutive days, and 3) pooled single-sire doses. Eight (n = 4 per stud) eight doses (80 mL) were obtained from two studs (A vs. B). Pooled composite boars Doses subsampled (16 for days post-collection. Negative controls remained unopened until last day. Each day, mL each subsample flash frozen stored at -80°C analysis targeting V4 hypervariable region 16S rRNA gene Illumina sequencing. Quality all sequences determined by FastQC before being processed taxonomic using qiime2 pipeline. Alpha (difference sample metric) analyzed Kruskal-Wallis test, whereas PERMANOVA performed beta (differences metric). According alpha metrics, Chao1 (P < 0.01) Shannon’s index indicated contrasts among negative controls. This further confirmed with a pairwise comparison individual groups, which day 1 exhibited lower when compared 2, 3, 4, 0.01). Interestingly, reduced observed (57.4 ± 6.6 132.4 22.1, P 0.01, Q 0.01; respectively) (4.8 0.2 6.1 0.3, respectively). No differences stud or sire-type detected metrics. For analyses, both PCoA plots weighted unifrac metric demonstrated no significant clustering sampling days. distinctions identified unweighted metric. Specifically, discovered metrics revealed distinct stud. there Based these results, may be altered time could occur operations. Additional studies analyzing help improve characterization boars.