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Recovery test results as a prerequisite for publication of gaseous exchange measurements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2017

Walter Gerrits
Affiliation:
Animal Nutrition Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Etienne Labussière
Affiliation:
PEGASE, Agrocampus Ouest, INRA, Saint Gilles, France
Jan Dijkstra
Affiliation:
Animal Nutrition Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Chris Reynolds
Affiliation:
School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, United Kingdom
Cornelia Metges
Affiliation:
Forschungsinstitut für die Biologie landwirtschaftlicher Nutztiere, Dummerstorf, Germany
Björn Kuhla
Affiliation:
Forschungsinstitut für die Biologie landwirtschaftlicher Nutztiere, Dummerstorf, Germany
Peter Lund
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Science, Aarhus University, Tjele, Denmark
Martin Riis Weisbjerg
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Science, Aarhus University, Tjele, Denmark

Abstract

Type
Letter to the Editors
Copyright
© The Animal Consortium 2017 

In the last decade, various applications of gaseous exchange measurements have been developed for quantifying the production or consumption of particular gases. Notably, booming research into methane emissions has led to an expansion of the number of facilities in which such measurements can be performed. Recent research by Gardiner et al. (Reference Gardiner, Coleman, Innocenti, Tompkins, Connor, Garnsworthy, Moorby, Reynolds, Waterhouse and Wills2015) has confirmed our concern that not all research groups comply with the same standards, and it is alarming to read full system recoveries of six facilities in the UK, to be varying between 59% and 115% (six facilities, 22 individual chambers measured). We are convinced that such unacceptable recoveries also occur elsewhere. From two courses on indirect calorimetry that we organised, directly following the ISEP conferences in Davis in 2013 (USA) and Krakow in 2016 (Poland) we learnt that recovery tests are not consistently performed around the world. The urge for performing such tests has also recently been emphasized by Hammond et al. (Reference Hammond, Crompton, Bannink, Dijkstra, Yánez-Ruiz, O’Kiely, Kebreab, Eugène, Yu, Shingfield, Schwarm, Hristov and Reynolds2016).

We are of the opinion that for all techniques aiming at quantification of gas exchange or production, either indirect calorimetry, methane emissions by chamber technique, ventilated hood or head box techniques, full system recovery tests of the relevant gas should be performed immediately before or following the measurements that are reported, and the results of these recovery tests for each chamber or unit are reported in the ‘Material and methods’ section of the manuscript. Currently, results of recovery tests are rarely reported. Procedures for recovery tests are fairly simple and can easily be found in references included below.

References

References

Gardiner, TD, Coleman, MD, Innocenti, F, Tompkins, J, Connor, A, Garnsworthy, PC, Moorby, JM, Reynolds, CK, Waterhouse, A and Wills, D 2015. Determination of the absolute accuracy of UK chamber facilities used in measuring methane emissions from livestock. Measurement 66, 272279.Google Scholar
Hammond, KJ, Crompton, LA, Bannink, A, Dijkstra, J, Yánez-Ruiz, DR, O’Kiely, P, Kebreab, E, Eugène, MA, Yu, Z, Shingfield, KJ, Schwarm, A, Hristov, AN and Reynolds, CK 2016. Review of current in vivo measurement techniques for quantifying enteric methane emission from ruminants. Animal Feed Science and Technology 219, 1330.Google Scholar

Reference books for Calorimetry, including detailed description of recovery tests

Gerrits, WJJ and Labussière, E 2015. Indirect calorimetry, techniques, computations and applications. Wageningen Academic Publishers, Wageningen, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
McLean, JA and Tobin, G 1988. Animal and human calorimetry. University Press, Cambridge, UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar