Datasets of shotgun metagenomics evaluation of rumen microbiota of South African mutton merino sheep

The rumen microbial consortium plays a crucial role in the production performance and health of the ruminant animal. They are responsible for breaking down complex plant ma-terials such as cellulose and hemicellulose to release usable energy by the host animal. Rumen microbial diversity ma-nipulation through dietary strategies can be used to achieve several goals such as improved feed efficiency, reduced envi-ronmental impact or better utilization of low-quality forages. The dataset, deposited in the National Centre for Biotech-nology Information SRA with project number PRJNA775821, comprises sequenced DNA extracted from the rumen content of 16 South African Merino sheep supplemented with dif-ferent plant extracts. Illumina HiSeqTM 60 0 0 technology was utilised to generate a total of approximately 46.7 Gb in raw nucleotide data. The data consists of 700,318,582 sequences, each with an average length of 184 base pairs. Taxonomic an-notation conducted through the MG-RAST server showed the dominant phylum averages are Bacteroidetes (51 %) and Fir-micutes (28 %), while Euryarchaeota, Actinobacteria, and Pro-teobacteria each account for approximately 3 % of the pop-ulation. This dataset also enables us to identify and profile all expressed genes related to metabolic and chemical pro-cesses. The dataset is a valuable tool, offering insights that can lead to enhanced sustainability, profitability and reduced environmental impact within the context of ruminant production process. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )