Protist Community Structure in Dairy Barns Under Two Management Systems

A 2026 study by Tawni L. Crippen uses shotgun metagenomic analysis to define the spatial composition and relative abundance of protist communities from 118 samples at a commercial dairy. Samples were taken from manure, lagoons, troughs, and house and stable flies under flow-through and cross-vent barn management systems. Sequence reads were mapped to the CosmosID database, reflecting DNA detection only, not viability.

Use Cases

• Compare protist diversity between dairy components (e.g., troughs vs. manure) based on sample types mentioned in the description.
• Investigate the presence of potential pathogens like Neobalantidium coli and carriers like Paramecium biaurelia in different barn areas.
• Analyze protist taxa carried by stable flies versus house flies as described in the results.
• Study the distribution of protist groups (e.g., water molds, ciliates, amoebas) by their relative abundance across sample types.
• Assess the influence of barn management systems (flow-through vs. cross-vent) on protist community structure.

Strengths

• Includes 118 samples from multiple dairy components (manure, lagoons, troughs, flies).
• Provides specific relative abundance percentages for protist groups (e.g., 62.71% water molds, 23.31% ciliates).
• Compares two distinct barn management systems (flow-through and cross-vent).

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data reflects DNA detection only, not organism viability or disease occurrence, as noted in the methods.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Community shotgun metagenomic analysis, sequence reads mapped to the CosmosID database.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 12:59:16