Succession in the intestinal microbiota of preadolescent turkeys

In the present study, automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA), library sequence analysis, real-time PCR detection of Bacteroides uniformis and Campylobacter coli and dot-blot hybridizations of Clostridiaceae were used to identify trends in microbial colonization of the ceca of male turkeys. Two separate trials were performed with six and five birds, respectively. ARISA community profiles identified a period of community transition at week 12 of age in both trials. A significant increase of Ca. coli was also detected at week 12 in one trial, suggesting a possible correlation between microbiota destabilization and pathogen prevalence. Libraries of ribosomal small subunit 16S genes representing weeks 9, 11, 12 and 14 of both trials were sequenced. Whereas fingerprint and sequence analyses indicated significant differences in the species composition between the two trials, in general sequence library and dot-blot analyses indicated that Clostridia-like species decreased in prevalence over time. While B. uniformis prevalence in the two trials rose from 7% and 0% of the library clones at week 9 to 84% and 79% at week 11, real-time PCR did not support these results, with only approximately twofold and sixfold increases in internal transcribed spacer copy numbers observed.