Silicon dioxide is known to have high surface activity, greater absorption ability, larger anions, and cation exchange capacity than in the gut.This experiment was carried out to clarify whether dietary monzogranite (MON) supplementation as a silicon dioxide source with different levels can change the microbiological environment in weanling pigs and how gut microbiota affects performance.Weanling pigs were randomly assigned to 4 treatments with 10 replicates, and 4 pigs were in each replicate.The experimental treatments consisted of a control (basal diet, CON), basal diet + 0.1% MON (MO1), basal diet + 0.2% MON (MO2), and basal diet + 0.3% MON (MO3).The fecal microbiota alpha diversity of weanling pigs fed the MO2 and MO3 diet revealed a lower Chao 1 index compared to CON and MO1 (p < 0.05).Unweighted UniFrac distance and Bray-curtis dissimilarity analysis showed significant differences between CON and MO2, CON and MO3.In the cladogram of LEfSe analysis of bacterial differences, two groups were compared with CON and MO1, CON and MO2, and CON and MO3.MO1 group was greater in the Clostridiales, Clostridia, and Peptostreptococcaceae whereas the CON group had greater in the Erysipelotrichi, RF39, and Peptococcus.The pigs fed different levels of MON did not show any significant difference in growth performance.These findings suggest that the supplementation of monzogranite to the feed may influence the anaerobic microorganisms in the gut; however, further validation is required to assess its effects on performance in pigs.
Mun et al. (Sun,) studied this question.