Analysis of Bacterial Communities and Physico-chemical Properties of Grain Corn Silage Using 16S Amplicon Metagenomics in Malaysia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56532/mjsat.v5i2.405Keywords:
16S Amplicon Sequencing, Bacterial Communities, Fermentation Characteristics, Grain Corn Silage, Silage QualityAbstract
Tropical regions produce silage that is susceptible to spoiling due to excessive humidity and warmth. Consequently, identifying native bacteria as a possible inoculant is important to enhancing the quality of silage. The aim of this work was to use amplicon metagenomics to identify the bacterial community and functional changes related to ensiling and to forecast possible bacterial inoculant related to grain corn silage quality in the Malaysian climate. The fermentation characteristics and functional bacterial populations grain corn were produced and studied. After fermentation, the grain corn silage had a lactic acid bacteria (LAB) predominance. The dominant taxa in fresh grain corn, Leuconostoc & Pseudomonas were displaced by LAB, namely Weissella and Lactobacillus and showed high silage quality with an increase in lactic acid (LA) and acetic acid (AA), conversely decrease in water-soluble carbohydrates (WC). Tax4fun's functional prediction revealed metabolic pathways of coenzyme and transport and metabolism were depleted while synthesis of secondary metabolites which associated to fermentation activities (p<0.05) was enriched in after ensiling, likely to support bacterial growth during silage fermentation and produce metabolic byproducts like lactic acid. This study highlighted the presence and potential roles of homolactic and heterolactic bacterial populations before and after ensiling, which can be utilized to produce more effective bacterial additives for improving the fermentation quality of grain corn silage in tropical climates like Malaysia.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Minhalina Badrul Hisham, Amalia MohdHashim, Nursyuhaida Mohd Hanafi, Nur Elina Abdul Mutalib, Tan Chun Keat
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