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Pigs are susceptible to heat stress due to their limited ability to dissipate metabolic heat and due to genetic selection for a higher lean percentage which further increases their metabolic heat production. With the increasing impacts of climate change, heat stress has become an increasing concern in pork production due to increasing global temperature and more frequent heat waves. One of the most important effects of heat stress in pigs is reduced feed intake which results in decreased growth performance. Many feed additives and nutritional strategies have been studied to mitigate the effects of heat stress (Cottrell et al., 2015), but results have been varied. Use of probiotic live yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. boulardii (CNCM I-1079) have been recently demonstrated to mitigate the negative effects of heat stress in growing pigs (Labussière et al., 2016). In this mentioned study, live yeast supplementation increased energy retention, increased feed intake, and maintained an increased number of meals, thus helping pigs cope with heat stress.

In this context, the general objective of the thesis is to verify the positive impact of live yeast supplementation on pig performance during heat stress and to determine whether these effects are related to a modification of energy metabolism, a change in the feeding behavior, and/or to an alteration in the microbiota composition of pigs.

Aira Maye Serviento is working on this thesis subject since the april 2019 for a period of 3 years. She is supervised by David Renaudeau and Etienne Labussière in the team Alimentation and nutrition.

References

J.J. Cottrell, et al. Nutritional strategies to alleviate heat stress in pigs. Animal Production Science 55.12 (2015). pp. 1391-1402. {https://doi.org/10.1071/AN15255}

E. Labussière, S. Dubois, M. Castex, D. Renaudeau. Effect of dietary live yeast supplementation on thermal heat acclimatization in finishing male pigs. 5. International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition (Isep), Sep 2016, Cracovie, Poland. In : Energy and protein metabolism and nutrition. Wageningen Academic Publishers. (EAAP Scientific Series, vol. 137). pp. 155-156 ⟨hal-02743959⟩

Contact

Aira Maye Serviento, aira-maye.serviento[at]inrae.fr (PhD)
David Renaudeau, david.renaudeau[at]inrae.fr (supervisor)
Etienne Labussière, etienne.labussiere[at]inrae.fr (supervisor)