Table 4.

Alpha diversity of ruminal bacterial communities of CON ¹ and TR ² groups.

Item	CON	TR	SEM	P-Value
Number of OTUs 3	1132	544	109	0.001
ACE 4	1404	813	112	0.002
Chao 1 value	1416	760	124	0.001
Shannon index	4.92	3.05	0.36	0.002

¹ CON (control group) = dairy cows fed total mixed ration (TMR). ² TR (treatment group) = dairy cows fed pelleted high-starch diet. ³ OTUs = operational taxonomic units. ⁴ ACE = abundance-based coverage estimator.