Queen’s Belfast joins international research into livestock emissions
Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast will contribute to a five-year international project examining how livestock breeding and nutrition can improve productivity while reducing environmental impact.
Image supplied by Queen’s University Belfast.
The team will provide expertise on the microorganisms involved in digestion and how they influence methane production in livestock.
The research is being carried out through the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, involving the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Belfast expertise in livestock emissions
Professor Sharon Huws will lead the Queen’s team, with Dr Katerina Theodoridou as co-lead and Dr Kayley Barnes also contributing.
The researchers are based in the university’s Institute for Global Food Security and School of Biological Sciences.
Their role will focus on how nutrition and microbial communities in the rumen — a stomach compartment in animals such as cattle and sheep — relate to productivity and methane emissions.
The rumen contains microorganisms that break down plant fibres, helping animals obtain nutrients and energy from their food. That process also produces methane.
Dr Barnes explained that microbial communities differ between animals, and that research has identified differences between those producing higher and lower levels of methane.
The team will contribute expertise on how changes in nutrition can influence these communities and, in turn, methane production.
Breeding animals for a changing climate
The project, titled “Enhancing animal phenotyping for improved productivity and resilience”, aims to help countries identify and measure traits that can inform livestock breeding.
These could help breeders select animals that remain healthy and productive as environmental conditions change.
Professor Huws said livestock production faces growing pressure from population growth, demand for animal-source foods and climate change.
She highlighted how higher temperatures, changing rainfall and extreme weather can affect feed quality, water availability, disease and animal welfare.
The research aims to support resilience without compromising the animals’ performance.
Supporting global food security
The wider initiative will explore nuclear and related technologies that can help researchers collect information about animal traits and improve breeding programmes.
Its objectives include increasing productivity and resilience, particularly in developing countries, while supporting more sustainable food production.
The IAEA lists the project as active, with an expected completion date of March 2031.
External link: IAEA — livestock productivity and resilience research project
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