A large database linking the rumen bacterial composition and milk traits in Lacaune sheep.

Ruminants are able to produce food for human consumption from plants, thanks to rumen bacteria. Bacteria are able to transform feed to microbial proteins and to biohydrogenate unsaturated fatty acids, contributing directly to fine milk composition. The database consists of daily records of milk yield, somatic cell score and 17 milk components such as fatty acids and proteins from 795 Lacaune dairy ewes. Ruminal samples were extracted from ewes using a gastric tube and sequenced to determine the bacterial composition by metabarcoding 16S rRNA gene on a next-generation sequencing platform. From bioinformatics analysis, 9,536,442 sequences were retained and re-grouped into 2,059 affiliated OTUs, represented by 751 to 168,617 sequences. Overall, 2,059 OTUs from 795 samples were attributed to 11 phyla. The most representative phyla were Bacteroidota (50.6%) and Firmicutes (43.6%), and the most abundant families were Prevotellaceae (37.9%), Lachnospiraceae (18.1%), Ruminococcaceae (8.97%). Both shared datasets will be useful for researchers to study the link between rumen bacteria and milk traits and to propose solutions to improve animal production and health.