Fig. 1.
Microbial diversity of the chicken cecum. (A) Chao1 and the observed abundance-based coverage estimator (ACE) indexes. (B) Simpson and Shannon indexes. (C) Principal component analysis (PCA) plot of the cecal microbiota in groups B and C. (D) Composition and distribution of the microbiota at the phylum level. (E) The heat map showing the composition of the genus-level microbiota combined with the results from the cluster analysis. B1 to B6 refer to group B, the Clostridium butyricum group; C1 to C6 refer to group C, the control group. ∗, P < 0.05; NS, no significant difference.