Dr Caroline Rymer

My research interest is in the characterisation of feeds, and in understanding the interaction between the composition of the diet and the animal's response in terms of health, performance and environmental impact. Key research areas in which I am currently engaged are:

1. Using microbiomic and metabolomic approaches to understand the impact of nutritional and environmental interventions in poultry production. This research seeks to explain the mechanisms involved (in terms of changes in gut microbiome composition and host metabolic responses) that bring about changes to the health and performance of broilers when different interventions are applied. The effect of diet and management on the prevalence of antimicrobial resistant bacteria in the chicken gut is also being investigated.

2. Increasing the efficiency of utilisation of feeds, particularly co-products from food and biofuel production. My work in this area is in the characterisation of feeds derived from these processes, to determine the role they may have in feeding livestock in a more sustainable manner. Recent and current examples of this work include the development of prediction methods for the estimation of the energy value of maize silage, and identifying the nutritive value of residues from bioethanol production.