Table 6.

Rumen bacterial populations (% of total bacteria) after 6, 12 and 24 h in vitro incubation

Bacteria1	Incubation time	Sucrose level				SEM 2	P-value 3
		0	3 %	6 %	9 %		T	L	Q
B. fibrisolvens	6 h	0.0013	0.0015	0.0018	0.0013	0.0007	0.063	0.580	0.018
	12 h	0.0016	0.0022	0.0023	0.0025	0.0001	0.142	0.033	0.480
	24 h	0.0017c	0.0020bc	0.0029a	0.0025ab	0.0002	0.008	0.005	0.110
M. elsdenii	6 h	0.041	0.041	0.035	0.044	0.0044	0.927	0.940	0.683
	12 h	0.037	0.025	0.035	0.043	0.0039	0.481	0.415	0.249
	24 h	0.034a	0.015b	0.021b	0.018b	0.0026	0.036	0.049	0.075
S. bovis	6 h	0.061	0.060	0.038	0.044	0.0121	0.898	0.537	0.886
	12 h	0.090	0.099	0.080	0.100	0.0057	0.718	0.756	0.548
	24 h	0.080b	0.18a	0.090b	0.11b	0.0139	0.016	0.848	0.062
P. acnes	6 h	0.029	0.035	0.050	0.054	0.0047	0.190	0.039	0.956
	12 h	0.073	0.074	0.061	0.069	0.0046	0.776	0.561	0.705
	24 h	0.080	0.103	0.077	0.087	0.0049	0.227	0.930	0.463

Note: Means within the same row with different superscripts differ significantly (P < 0.05)

¹ B. fibrisolvens = Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens, S. bovis = Streptococcus bovis, M. elsdenii = Megasphaera elsdenii, P. acnes = Propionibacterium acnes

² SEM = standard error of mean

³ Probability of a significant effect of treatment (T), or linear (L) and quadratic (Q) orthogonal contrasts for dietary sucrose levels