Figure 4

Ileal and cecal microbiota of broiler chickens at different ages. Observed OTUs (A) and phylogenetic diversity (B) rarefactions of ileal samples collected on days 15, 25, and 35. Unweighted Unifrac PCoA shows a statistically, but not biologically, significant effect of age on the ileal microbiota (R = 0.1, P = 0.01) (C). Alpha rarefaction analysis of cecal samples (D, E) shows that observed OTUs and phylogenetic diversity both increased on day 35 compared with those samples collected on day 15 and 25 (P < 0.01). A separate clustering of cecal microbiota was observed on day 35 (R = 0.42, P < 0.01) (F). The LEfSe provided the list differentially abundant taxa between ages in the ileum (G) and cecum (H). The cutoff value of linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was 2.0 or higher.