Fig. 4

Differences in microbial changes after CTC and MCE treatment. a The NMDS plot of microbial communities in CTC and MCE groups, based on Bray-Curtis dissimilarities at the species level. The obvious difference was in the foregut. b The average relative abundances of genera increased by MCE or CTC in the foregut. Kitasatospora and Streptomyces were significantly (P < 0.05) increased by CTC. c The average relative abundance of ARGs was increased (P < 0.1) by CTC in the foregut. d The heatmap of KEGG metabolic pathways significantly altered by CTC or MCE in the foregut (18 samples for each group, including 9 samples from AA chickens and 9 samples from LY chickens). The relative abundance of each pathway was colored according to the row z-score ((value – row mean)/row standard deviation). Red, black, and white rectangles at the right side of the heatmap represent significant increase (P < 0.05), significant decrease (P < 0.05), and no significant change (P > 0.05) compared to the BLANK, respectively. The Kruskal-Wallis test (Storey’s methods for adjustment) was followed by a post-hoc Wilcoxon rank-sum test