| Comments |
P.635 left column bottom paragraph: "Based on statistical analyses, there were no differences among fermenters for chemical fermentation characteristics or microbial populations. For the following results and discussion, fermenter samples are represented by sampling time (96, 120, 144 and 168 h) and are means of the four fermenters. The amount of SSU [small subunit] rRNA extracted was not significantly different among ruminal, inoculum and fermenter samples (Table 3). The relative abundances (% of total SSU rRNA) of Bacteria, Eukarya, Archaea, Gram-positive bacteria and Fibrobacter were similar in ruminal and inoculum samples (Table 4, Figs 2 and 3). Fermenter samples (96, 120, 144 and 168 h) had a higher relative abundance of bacteria (averaging 84.5%) and a lower relative abundance of Eukarya (averaging 1.8%) than either ruminal or inoculum samples (Table 3, Fig. 2). Archaeal relative abundance was higher in 96, 120, 144 and 168 h samples (2.0% of total SSU rRNA, average for all fermenter samples) than in ruminal samples (1.3% of total SSU rRNA) (Table 3, Fig. 3). Abundance of Gram-positive bacteria was higher in the fermenter samples (37.2% average for all fermenter samples) than in the inoculum samples (24.4% of total SSU rRNA) (Table 3, Fig. 2). The relative abundance of Fibrobacter in the fermenter samples (2.5%) was similar to the proportion found in ruminal and inoculum samples (Table 3, Fig. 3)." |