Harnessing Gut Microbiome Science for Sustainability and Precision Animal Nutrition

The gut microbiome plays a critical role in regulating nutrient digestion, absorption, metabolism, and immune function in livestock. Recent advances in microbiome science have revealed that microbial communities in the gastrointestinal tract strongly influence feed efficiency, growth performance, health resilience, and even product quality. At the same time, livestock production faces increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient waste, and reliance on expensive conventional feed resources. Harnessing gut microbiome knowledge offers a powerful pathway to develop precision feeding strategies and sustainable nutritional interventions that optimise nutrient utilisation while improving animal productivity and environmental outcomes.Livestock nutrition is still largely driven by conventional feed formulation approaches that assume animals respond uniformly to diets. However, increasing evidence shows that variations in the gut microbiome strongly influence nutrient digestion, feed efficiency, immune function, health resilience, and environmental outputs such as methane emissions and nutrient excretion. As a result, current “one-size-fits-all” feeding strategies often lead to inefficient nutrient utilisation, higher production costs, unnecessary reliance on antimicrobials, and avoidable environmental burdens undermining sustainable livestock production.The goal of this Research Topic is to advance microbiome-informed precision nutrition as a practical pathway for improving productivity while reducing environmental impact. This will be achieved by consolidating research on host microbiome interactions, microbiome biomarkers linked to performance, and nutritional interventions that modulate microbial function (e.g., functional feeds, probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes, phytogenics, alternative feed resources). We encourage studies using omics tools, predictive modelling, and data-driven approaches to support targeted, climate-smart feeding strategies across diverse production systems.This Research Topic focuses on innovative research that harnesses gut microbiome science to advance sustainability and precision animal nutrition in monogastric and ruminant systems. We invite contributions addressing themes such as: microbiome host interactions and nutrient utilisation; microbiome biomarkers for feed efficiency and health; microbiome modulation using probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, postbiotics, enzymes, phytogenics and functional feeds; alternative and circular-economy feed resources; microbiome-driven mitigation of enteric methane and nutrient excretion; and applications of omics technologies, predictive modelling, and AI for precision feeding. Studies linking microbiome dynamics to resilience under climate stress (heat, disease, drought) and product quality are welcome. We accept Original Research, Review, Mini-Review, Perspective, and Opinion articles with strong mechanistic insight or translational value for practical feeding systems. Topic editors: Nthabiseng Amenda Sebola, Kulisara Marupanthorn, Dr. Kamran Khan, Nazir Ahmad Khan Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/77756/harnessing-gut-microbiome-science-for-sustainability-and-precision-animal-nutrition