Fig. 7.

Beta diversity of gut microbiota of laying chickens affected by probiotic supplementation, flock age and rearing conditions. a). Overall beta diversity of probiotic and control flocks. b). Beta diversity affected by flock age. c). Beta diversity affected by the probiotic supplementation in the rearing (Rear) and production (Prod) phases of laying chickens. d). Beta diversity affected by the probiotic supplementation in the Pre-lay and Early-lay phases of laying chickens. e). Beta diversity affected by the feeding regimen. f). Beta diversity affected by transportation stress. Within each treatment group, “C” refers to control, while “P” refers to the probiotic supplemented flocks. Beta diversity was measured at genus level by ANOSIM Bray-Curtis dissimilarities matrix in Calypso software. Asterisks (**) show P value at 0.001 between the respective two treatment groups