Unlocking the Power of Gut Microbiota to Improving Health and Welfare in Non-Ruminant Livestock

Non-ruminant livestock play an important role in providing quality protein food for humans, and their health will affect the quality of these products. The animal gastrointestinal tracts contain trillions of microorganisms, which have been widely reported for their great influence on the host phenotypes through the immune, neural, and endocrine pathways to affect the hosts health and behavior. Recent advances in sequencing technology have revolutionized our view of microbiota in the animal gastrointestinal tract. However, there is a large research gap in understanding the importance and role of gut microbial regulation in the prevention and treatment of animal diseases. Further studies are warranted to elucidate the crosstalk between gut microbiota and host. Several intrinsic and extrinsic factors can influence the composition of the gut microbiota and ultimately affect animal health and welfare, including genetics, infections, medications, diet, etc. Although several factors associated with microbiota manipulation have been widely reported, it is essential to explore more approaches that can maintain microbiota manipulation effectiveness while improving gut homeostasis and non-ruminant livestock health. To stimulate the next wave of research which can tie the microbiota to functional and health impacts, we invite authors to investigate a wide range of tools that can be used to manipulate the microbiota and suggest a variety of methods for measuring the impact of such manipulation in promoting non-ruminant livestock health and welfare. Through this exploration, we aim to advance the scientific knowledge and practical approaches of microbiota manipulation in non-ruminant livestock.