Comparative Analysis of Nasal Microbial Community between Tibetan Sheep with different Ages

Tibetan sheep is an important domestic animal inhabiting the Tibetan plateau, which is closely related to local economic development and national culture. Presently, there are many studies on the gut microbiota of Tibetan sheep, but little is known about the nasal microbial community. Here, we investigated the distributions and changes of the nasal microbial community in Tibetan sheep at different ages. Results of amplicon sequencing showed that 476,275 and 484,669 effective sequences were generated in the ASG (adult Tibetan sheep) and YSG (young Tibetan sheep) groups, respectively. These sequences were clustered into 6,817 OTUs and the ASG group and YSG group have 2,133 and 5,176 OTUs, respectively. Results of alpha diversity indicated that the ASG group had a significantly higher Chao1 index than the YSG, whereas Simpson and Shannon indices had no significant difference. Metastatistical analysis showed that compared with the ASG group, 8 bacterial phyla were significantly increased and 2 bacterial phyla were significantly decreased in the YSG group. At the genus level, 185 bacterial genera were significantly increased and 25 bacterial genera were significantly decreased in the YSG group compared with the ASG group. In conclusion, this study provided a preliminary analysis of the dynamic changes and distribution of nasal microbial community in Tibetan sheep. Results showed that the abundance and composition of the nasal microbial community of Tibetan sheep were significantly different at different ages.