Table 2. Relative abundance of bacterial phyla and families among 192 samples collected from 48 dairy cattle during the periparturient period.
| Taxa | Overall relative abundances (%) | Pre-calving | Post-calving | P-value* | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week -3 | Week -1 | Week +1 | Week +3 | |||
| Phylum | ||||||
| Bacteroidetes | 47.80 | 45.44 | 48.35 | 48.31 | 49.17 | 0.16 |
| Firmicutes | 42.90 | 45.50 | 43.57 | 42.94 | 39.56 | 0.005 |
| Bacteria_unclassified | 4.38 | 5.17 | 4.73 | 3.54 | 4.07 | <0.001 |
| Spirochaetes | 2.28 | 0.77 | 0.79 | 2.76 | 4.87 | <0.001 |
| Proteobacteria | 0.94 | 1.03 | 1.05 | 0.78 | 0.93 | <0.001 |
| Verrucomicrobia | 0.74 | 1.20 | 0.87 | 0.50 | 0.38 | <0.001 |
| Euryarchaeota | 0.44 | 0.43 | 0.36 | 0.49 | 0.47 | 0.09 |
| Actinobacteria | 0.29 | 0.16 | 0.07 | 0.53 | 0.41 | <0.001 |
| Others | 0.18 | 0.20 | 0.19 | 0.16 | 0.14 | 0.004 |
| Family | ||||||
| Bacteroidaceae | 21.6 | 20.4 | 21.1 | 22.7 | 21.4 | 0.3 |
| Ruminococcaceae | 16.7 | 18.6 | 17.8 | 16.5 | 14.8 | 0.029 |
| Clostridiaceae | 11.9 | 13.2 | 12.8 | 11.2 | 11.3 | 0.006 |
| Prevotellaceae | 4.8 | 3.9 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 6.1 | 0.015 |
| Bacteria_unclassified | 4.3 | 5.2 | 4.7 | 3.5 | 4.1 | <0.001 |
| Lachnospiraceae | 3.9 | 3.4 | 3.4 | 4.5 | 4.0 | 0.004 |
| Spirochaetaceae | 2.4 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 2.8 | 4.9 | <0.001 |
| Rikenellaceae | 2.3 | 2.0 | 2.4 | 2.4 | 2.1 | 0.9 |
| Porphyromonadaceae | 0.9 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 1.1 | 1.1 | <0.001 |
* P-values were calculated using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test that evaluated the differences in relative abundance at pre-calving compared to post-calving. P-values < 0.05 were considered significant.