Impact of a defined bacterial community including and excluding on broiler cecal microbiota and resistance to infection.

Intensive broiler production practices impair the transmission of commensal microbes from hens to offspring, resulting in a lower abundance of non-spore-forming strict anaerobic bacteria. We evaluated the effects of introducing a defined community (DC) of bacteria including and excluding to chicks prior to a challenge. Inoculation with DC resulted in higher phylogenetic diversity (PD) and the dominance of Bacteroidetes species in the cecal microbiota, with a decrease in the relative abundance of and , as well as a lower load.