Bacteria and Archaea community structure in the rumen microbiome of goats (Capra hircus) from the semiarid region of Brazil

Most studies present in the literature about the rumen microbiome have focused on cattle and sheep. This is the first report of the characterization of the bacterial and archaeal communities present in the liquid and solid-associated fractions of the rumen from free ranging Moxotó breed goats using 16S rRNA gene libraries. PCR was used to amplify the 16S rRNA gene with bacterial and archaeal universal primers and sequences from each library constructed were obtained. Sequences of Bacteria from the phyla Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were predominant. The overall dominant classes in the rumen were Clostridia and Bacteroidia, which are known to play a role in plant fiber degradation in other ruminants. Unclassified Bacteria accounted for 4.7% of the liquid fraction sequences and 16.4% of the solid fraction sequences. From the archaeal libraries only sequences from the phylum Euryarcheota were identified and were assigned to the class Methanobacteria of the genera Methanobrevibacter and Methanosphaera. A group of Archaea not previously known to be associated with the rumen was identified: uncultured methanogens belonging to the "uncultured marine bacteria" groups II and III. The local water contained high salt concentrations and this may explain the presence of these groups in the Moxotó goat rumen.