Characterization of bacterial and archeal communities associated to dietary adaptations of grass and maize silage based diets

Replacing grass silage (GS) with maize-silage (MS) in the diets of dairy cattle offers an effective strategy to decrease enteric CH4 production without negatively affecting dairy cow performance. The aim of this study was to characterise the rumen bacterial and archaeal communities in response to different GS and MS rations. All four dietary treatments had 80:20 roughage to concentrate ratio based on dry matter (DM), but differed in the GS:MS of the roughage.