Protist Community Structure Across Dairy Barn Components from Metagenomic Analysis

118 environmental samples from manure, lagoons, troughs, and flies at a commercial dairy were analyzed using community shotgun metagenomics. The dataset, authored by Tawni L. Crippen and last updated in May 2026, maps sequence reads to the CosmosID database to define protist composition and relative abundance under two barn management systems. Results show protist composition differed significantly between dairy components, with water molds comprising 62.71% of the total relative abundance.

Use Cases

• Compare protist diversity and community structure based on sample type (manure, lagoons, troughs, flies).
• Assess the prevalence of potential pathogens like Neobalantidium coli based on DNA detection across barn components.
• Investigate differences in protist taxa carried by stable flies versus house flies.
• Evaluate the impact of barn management systems (flow-through vs. cross-vent) on environmental protist communities.

Strengths

• Includes 118 samples from multiple dairy components (manure, lagoons, troughs, flies).
• Provides relative abundance percentages for major protist groups (e.g., 62.71% water molds, 23.31% ciliates).
• Uses shotgun metagenomic analysis mapped to the CosmosID database.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data reflects DNA detection only, as viability and disease occurrence were not assessed.
• The dataset is small (126.4 KB), indicating limited scope.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Community shotgun metagenomic analysis of environmental samples.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 12:59:13; freshness should be verified.