TABLE 3.

PERMANOVA to test the difference in bacterial communities across three lactation groups.

Farm	Pairwise permanova p-value			Overall p-value
	L1−L3	L1−L5+	L3−L5+
	(n = 20)	(n = 20)	(n = 20)
F1 (n = 30)	0.407	<0.001	0.002	<0.001
F2 (n = 30)	0.005	0.007	0.035	<0.001
F3 (n = 30)	<0.001	<0.001	0.016	<0.001
F4 (n = 30)	0.017	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001
F5 (n = 30)	0.484	0.019	0.350	0.131
F6 (n = 30)	0.030	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001

Permanova, a non-parametric method, was applied separately in six farms to test the significance of the difference in fecal bacteria communities across three lactation groups. F1–F6 represent six farm groups, and L1 (1st lactation), L3 (3rd lactation), and L5+ (at least 5th lactation) represent the three lactation groups. All the p-values were calculated by permutating 1000 times. Each pairwise p-value was calculated from 20 samples, and each overall p-value was calculated from 30 samples in the corresponding farm.