Fig. 5

Analysis of intra-diet and intra-steer distances and dissimilarities reveals a larger influence of host-associated factors on viral populations compared to bacterial OTUs. a) Within diet weighted UniFrac distances were significantly lower than within animal weighted UniFrac distances in the rumen bacterial communities (P = 0.001, t = − 3.366, t test). b) No statistically significant differences were observed between intra-diet and intra-steer Bray-Curtis dissimilarities in viral populations (P = 0.067, t = − 1.896, t test)