ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE May 2022 29 cent advances in genomics techniques for assessing the GI microbiota, has shed new light on the prebiotic effect of seaweed polysaccharides on the GI microbiota profile and related physiological effects. Furthermore, the additional bioactive properties of SPs of green seaweeds has been demonstrated using ulvans and their oligosaccharides, which have been shown to possess strong immune-modulating activities (Wany et al., 2014). Several studies have reported that sulphated polysaccharides extracted from different seaweeds, such as L. japonica, A. nodosum or U. pinnafitida have demonstrated an inhibitory effect on the growth of pathogenic bacteria (De Jesus Raposo et al, 2015). Extracts rich in either laminarin or fucoidan fibres at 0.3 and 0.24 g/kg of food, respectively, that were isolated from Laminaria spp., decreased the fecal E. coli populations in pigs and reduced bacterial load in raw meat products (McDonnel et al, 2010). APPLYING A SEAWEED BLEND POSITIVELY IMPACTS THE GI MICROBIOTA A proprietary seaweed blend, including brown, green and red seaweeds was included in the diets of swine, poultry and equine at around 0.5% to 1% of daily feed intake to assess the effects on growth and productivity. In a 42-day broiler chicken study, a proprietary seaweed blend was included at a rate of 0.5% to a wheat-soyabean based diet, the relative abundance profile of bacteria families in the ceca tended to shift towards the fimicutes (Figure 3). This shift led to a change in Fimicutes to Bacteroidegtes ratio from 17.7 to 22.6, indicating the presence of more of the important fibre degrading, butyrate producers such as the Ruminococcaceae and Lachnospiraceae (Vital et al, 2017). The broiler chickens consuming the seaweed containing diet tended (P≤0.09) to have improved body weight gain and feed conversion ratio.
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