Sustainable poultry meat and egg production is important to provide safe and quality protein sources in human nutrition worldwide. The gastrointestinal (GI) tract of chickens harbors a diverse and complex microbiota that plays a vital role in digestion and absorption of nutrients, immune system development and pathogen exclusion. However, the integrity, functionality and health of the chicken gut depends on many factors including the environment, feed, and the GI microbiota. The symbiotic interactions between host and microbe is fundamental to poultry health and production. The diversity of the chicken GI microbiota is largely influenced by the age of the birds, location in the digestive tract and diet. Until recently, research on the poultry GI microbiota relied on conventional microbiological techniques that can only culture a small proportion of the complex community comprising the GI microbiota. Recent advances in 16S rRNA based next generation sequencing are a powerful tool to investigate the biological and ecological roles of the GI microbiota in chicken. Although several challenges remain in understanding the chicken GI microbiome, optimizing the taxonomic composition and biochemical functions of the GI microbiome is an attainable goal in the post-genomic era. This article reviews the current knowledge on the chicken GI function and factors that influence the diversity of gut microbiota. Further, this review compares past and current approaches that are used in chicken GI microbiota research. A better understanding of the chicken gut function and microbiology will provide us new opportunities for the improvement of poultry health and production.
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