Farzana Abbasi1 & Tahmina Fakhur-un-Nisa2 & Jingbo Liu1 & Xuegang Luo1 & Imtiaz Hussain Raja Abbasi3
Received: 17 June 2018 /Accepted: 13 December 2018 /Published online: 20 February 2019

Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract
Phosphorus is an essential macro-mineral nutrient for poultry, needed for the body growth, development of bones, genomic
function, good quality flesh, and eggs production. The imbalance of organic phosphorus sources in the diet mostly affect the
phosphorus digestibility, reduces the poultry performance and health, and increases the environmental pollution burden. A study
was reviewed to estimate the low phytate phosphorus digestibility of ingredients in poultry diet and their impacts on environmental
ecosystem and opportunity of phytase supplementation. Plant ingredients mostly used in poultry diets are rich in phytate
phosphorus. The phytate phosphorus digestibility and utilization is low in the gut of birds which leads to decrease other nutrients
digestibility and increase excessive excretion of phosphorus with additional nutrients in the manure. When that manure applied to
the lands containing excessive residual phosphorus and additional nutrients which pollute soil, groundwater disturbed the entire
ecosystem. This issue is developed by poultry due to lack of digestive enzyme phytase which promotes the phytate phosphorus
during digestion and reduces the excessive losses of phosphorus in excreta. To overcome this matter, the addition of mostly
exogenous phospho-hydrolytic phytase enzymes in the diet, i.e. Escherichia coli, Peniophora lycii, Aspergillus niger, and Ficum,
are the possible ways to increase the digestibility and utilization of phytate phosphorus and promote the stepwise release of
phosphorus from phytate and significantly decrease phosphorus excretion. The aim of this review is to highlight the role of
phytase supplementation in the poultry feeding, improvement of phytate phosphorus digestibility with performance, and reduction
of phosphorus pollution from the environment.
Keywords Environmental pollution . Phytate phosphorus . Phytate digestibility . Poultrymanure . Phytase supplementation
Introduction
The poultry industry is one of the biggest and fastest growing
agro-based productions in the world; there is the rising
demand for eggs and meat every year because they are the
good sources of energy and protein (FAO2006; Sharpley et al.
2007). Phosphorus (P) is the third most expensive component
of poultry feed and essential macro-mineral required to mediate
major metabolic pathways of the body (Suttle 2010) and
performs numerous functions like bone development, skeletal
mineralization, regulation of key enzymes in metabolism, several
genomic, and physiological processes (Dozier et al.
2015). Usually, it was considered that for the birds, only
30% of P is available in plants (NRC 1994). The main components
of poultry diets are the plant origin feedstuffs (Rapp
et al. 2001). But, most of plant origin feedstuffs contain antinutritional
factors such as phytic acid. The phytic acid molecules
contain 28.2%of phosphorus (Kornegay 2001) and have
anti-nutritional property for making phosphorus unavailable
for birds in addition to complexing with other nutrients.
However, phytic acid or phytate as a salt is the storage form
of phosphorus in cereal grains and oilseeds (Jacela et al.
2010). The total phosphorus (TP) and phytate phosphorus

(PP) 50–80% found in different cereal grains (Angel et al.
2002), while in oilseeds, the phytate present in aleuronic
layers and outer brans. In legume grains, phytate is accumulated
in cotyledons and rice kernels, and total P is present in
wheat (Steiner et al. 2007), maize, and small grains which
possess high phytate P inside the layer of aleuronic layers
(Kornegay 2001). Within given feedstuffs, phytate P is variable
in soybean meal (SBM) and in corn (Patterson et al.
2005). The SBM is a significant source of protein about 40
to 48% and contains excellent amino acid composition and
high digestibility property (Ravindran et al. 1995), mostly
used with corn as a primary source of energy in poultry diets
(Abbasi et al., 2018a, b). Commonly, the phytate P amount as
proportionally is lower in legume seeds as compared to cereals,
cereal by-products, and oilseeds (Viveros et al. 2000).
Grains like wheat, barley, corn, and oat also contain intrinsic
phytase activities (Eckhout and DePaepe 1994). The contents
of total P, phytate P, and phytase activities of different feed
ingredients are shown in Table 1. The significant amount of P
in poultry diet in the phytate P form was negligible (Selle and
Ravindran 2007) because poultry is relatively inefficient in
utilizing phytate P as they do not produce intestinal phytase
a digestive enzyme which releases the P from phytate
(Applegate et al. 2003). Due to that, phytate P are being excreted
excessively in manure and increase environmental
pollution pressure (Patterson et al. 2005) one main problem
is the accumulation of more waste, particularly compost and
litter (Kelleher et al. 2002).Waste production, and subsequent
accumulation through rigorous production by poultry and
large scale of these wastes can cause dumping and pollution
problems unless economically and environmentally (Sharpley
et al. 2007). In the poultry diet, the addition of feed enzymes
enhances the nutrients use and performance by counteracting
the negative influence of targeted substrates (Kebreab et al.
2012). To overcome the low availability of phytate P in the
diet by supplementation of different commercially exogenous
phytase enzymes and inorganic sources of P improves the
digestibility and phytate P utilization in poultry birds (Angel
et al. 2005).
Phytate phosphorus digestion and utilization
problems
Nutritional management aims to increase or maintain production
performance (Abbasi et al. 2014) and reduce pollution
load of soil, water, and air, improving feed efficiency and
poultry health that minimize the environmental pollution burden
and odor of poultry manures in the environment (Nahm
2002). The monogastric like poultry birds are incapable to
Table 1 The contents of total
phosphorus, phytate phosphorus,
and phytase activities of different
feed ingredients mostly used in
poultry diets
Feed ingredients Total P (%) Phytate-P (%) Phytase activity (units/kg)
Oilseed meals
Soybean meal 0.64 0.38 62.2
Canola meal 0.97 0.64 < 50
Cottonseed meal 1.00 0.77 51.2
Cereals
Corn 0.33 0.21 24.1
Triticale 0.40 0.27 1688.0
Rye 0.36 0.24 5130.0
Oats 0.37 0.25 496.1
Barley 0.32 0.19 582.2
Sorghum 0.30 0.21 112.1
Maize 0.26 0.18 ⁎
Wheat 0.30 0.21 1565.0
Cereal by-products
Rice bran 1.78 1.41 122.3
Wheat bran 1.09 0.83 2957.0
Rey bran 0.88 0.79 9241.1
Legume seeds
Peas 0.41 0.24 262.1
Beans 0.39 0.08 ⁎
Soybeans 0.73 0.33 ⁎
⁎Not available
Reviewed from Steiner et al. (2007); Woyengo and Nyachoti (2011)
9470 Environ Sci Pollut Res (2019) 26:9469–9479

utilize the phytate P of plant feedstuffs because a huge amount
of P is present in the form of phytate which is partially
digested by chickens (Dozier et al. 2015; Abbasi et al.,
2018a, b). The chickens capability to utilize phytate P is an issue
of debate (Marounek et al. 2008); the low digestibility of phytate
P means the inorganic phosphate (defluorinated), calcium phosphate
(monobasic and dibasic form), sodium phosphate (monobasic
and dibasic), magnesium phosphate, potassium phosphate
and phosphate rockare often added to the feed to meet up the
dietary requirements (Camden et al. 2001). Phosphorus present
50 to 70% in plants and degraded in a stepwise manner which
produces various intermediately products and free phosphates
(Kemme et al. 2006). To reduce the phytate P poor availability in
the diet is by supplementing the inorganic sources of P and
exogenous phytase, while dietary non-phytate phosphorus
(NPP) was decreased in combination with added phytase which
causes the reduction of P excreta 29 to 45% respectively (Angel
et al. 2006). Moreover, the feed ingredients contain phytase in
intrinsic phytases that can influence the phytate degradation and
utilization in poultry. Whereas, phytase supplementation with
corn-soy diets improves the P digestibility by 10 to 24%
(Rutherfurd et al. 2002) and microbial phytase supplementation
with corn-soy diets had efficiently improved the phytate P utilization
(Lei et al. 1994). Furthermore, in the diet, the inclusion of
phytase showed to reduce the water-soluble phosphorus absorption
within excreta (McGrath et al. 2005). Also, to get better
phosphorus utilization, different studies showed the reduction
in total P excreta of poultry (Rutherfurd et al. 2002). To improve
the P utilization and reduction of P excretion in manure, phytase
addition in diet can decrease the environmental pollution and
feed cost because P is the most expensive ingredient of poultry
feed and excess manure P application in land can cause the
runoff of P and infect the surface and groundwater
(Dankowiakowska et al. 2013).
Application of poultry manure
and accumulation of phosphorus in the soil
Application of poultry manure into the soil as fertilizer becomes
a growing issue; soil microbes (bacteria and fungi) break down
the organic matter into inorganic form by producing acids which
modify the insoluble P to soluble phosphate in the soil. The
growing plants take up the phosphate ions from the soil, and
these rich inorganic phosphate plants and their by-products were
used in poultry feeding, and poultry will digest, absorb, and
utilize through body tissues and undigested phosphorus excreted
and eventually returns to the soil by manure application (Fig. 1).
The soil absorption capability differs between various forms of P
with phytate P compactly bounded with soil, whereas other P
forms like phosphates are more mobile (Celi and Barberis,
2005). Therefore, the dietary factor that influences the phytate
P amount excreted by poultry can change the solubility of
resulting excreta, and their potential impacts for phosphorus
losses if applied to agricultural soils (Kaiser et al. 2009). The
factor which affects the solubility of P in poultry excreta was the
type of grains that they fed through diet (Leytem et al. 2008).
The sufficient use of both P and nitrogen (N) in soil is required
for plant growth (Hansen et al. 2005), because poultry compost
contains all essential nutrients including micro- and macronutrients
which provide the valuable source for plant growth
especially for organic growers (Harmel et al. 2009). Poultry
compost additions into the soil not only help to overcome the
discarding problems but also increase the chemical, physical,
and biological productiveness, improve stability and oxygen
diffusion rate of soil (Chan et al. 2008; McGrath et al. 2009).
Many ecological problems increased by the inappropriate practice
of manure products in soil and contamination of surface and
groundwater with P and N minerals (Sims et al. 2005).
However, manure by-products also contain other toxic trace
elements, like copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), and arsenic (As) still have
received less attention (Toor and Hunger 2009). The other environmental
concern is the air quality because of poultry litter, the
amplification of dust, odors, and bioaerosols (Millner 2009),
which produces odorous gasses, including amines, amides, sulfides,
and disulfides which cause respiratory diseases in humans
and animals (Schiffman and Williams 2005). The main consideration
is that tomaintain the environmental quality and improve
the manure usage and storage methods to reduce the gas emissions
(Aneja et al. 2006). Moreover, management practice alleviates
environmental consequences connected with water and
air quality parameters and develop the inventive commercial
technologies that provide the different resources of land application
of poultry manure (Szogi and Vanotti 2009).
Poultry manure application
and eutrophication problem
The excess phosphorus litter inputs, industrial discharges, and
runoff agriculture phosphorus to lakes usually occur by sewage
as a significant eutrophication agent. The inflow of P into coastal
regions increased more and accumulation of nutrients damages
the aquatic ecosystem (Howarth 2008). Phosphorus from
poultry manure usage in soil and runoff into waterways causes
eutrophication and also impacts on aquatic plants growth. It
causes excessive growth, decays of aquatic plants, and toxic
conditions in water ecosystem (NRC 2007). Phosphorus-rich
soils are washed into lakes, where some P dissolve and stimulate
the growth of aquatic plants and phytoplankton (Jeppeson
et al. 1998). Consequently, excessive plant production, aquatic
weeds, blooms of harmful algae, and shortage of oxygen increase
the frequency of anoxic events, which causes fauna mortality,
and damage the water ecosystem (Fig. 2). Algal blooms
cause red tide in the lakes and oceans which damage the marine
ecosystem, human health, and fisheries activities by their
Environ Sci Pollut Res (2019) 26:9469–9479 9471