Research Progress on Reducing Ruminal Methane Production of Ruminants by Plant Essential Oils
Plant essential oils are volatile and aromatic plant secondary metabolites extracted from plants.A large number of in vivo and in vitro studies show that plant essential oils can reduce the ruminal methane pro-duction of ruminants,and its mechanism of action mainly includes two aspects:on the one hand,plant essen-tial oils directly suppress the growth of methanogens,thus reducing methane production;on the other hand,they indirectly reduce methane production by reducing the number of microorganisms such as bacteria,archaea or protozoa that coexist with methanogens.However,there are still great challenges to widely apply plant es-sential oils to practical production in the future.This paper focuses on the research progress of reducing ruminal methane production of ruminants by plant essential oils,aiming to provide reference value for the scientific ap-plication of plant essential oils in ruminant production.[Chinese Journal of Animal Nutrition,2024,36(3):1399-1412]