Course contents

• The course will be a 10-day intensive workshop with a series of interactive seminars and theoretical exercises related to aspects of rumen ecology of ruminants, where teaching, and scientific seminars will be given by the organizers as well as by a number of local/internal (AU) and external (DK and international) lecturers.
• One of the aims of the course will be for those without classical microbiology training to understand current concepts of rumen microbiology. For students with a microbiological background, we aim to put rumen microbial research into context with environmental and nutritional drivers and production demands, encouraging cross-disciplinary thinking and reducing siloed perspectives.
• The course will introduce the participants to relevant disciplines (i.e., rumen microbial ecology, physiology of rumen microbes and environmental and nutritional drivers), as well as state-of-the-art analytical methods (e.g., molecular microbiota analysis, bacterial cultivation, and rumen in vitro systems).
• The seminars will address selected topics within the following areas: a) fundamentals of rumen physiology including nitrogen metabolism b) experimental design, c) sampling methodologies, d) rumen microbial ecology, e) microbiome sequencing technologies and microbiome data analysis, f) Rumen microbiome in relation to feed efficiency, hydrogen utilization, animal genetics, feeding strategies and metabolomics, g) physiology of rumen microbes, and h) analytical tools for studying rumen microbiology
• The exercises will introduce participants to sampling and handling of rumen digesta, in vitro rumen fermentation, bacterial quantification and identification and the analysis of pre-processed example data sets.