FIG 4.

Effect of protein or RNA on the temporal changes of the relative abundances of bacterial phyla in L. terrestris gut content microcosms based on the analyses of 16S rRNA and 16S rRNA genes. The most abundant families (i.e., families with ≥5% relative abundance in at least one sampling period) are displayed in the color of the respective phylum. Abbreviations: P, protein treatment; R, RNA treatment; C, unsupplemented control. Samples of the three replicates of a treatment were always pooled for each sampling time point, except for the 16S rRNA samples at the end of the 30-h incubation, in which each bar represents one replicate (the high similarity of the three replicates illustrates the reproducibility of the analyses). Process data are shown in Fig. 3, and information on all detected taxa is provided in “Sequence abundances” in Materials and Methods.