Table 4.

Effect of dietary treatments on microbiota α-diversity indices in cecal content of broiler chickens on day 35.

	Experimental treatments			SEM	p
	NC	Encap OA+EO	Non-encap OA+EO
Shannon	3.72	3.67	3.60	0.028	0.751
Simpson	0.94	0.94	0.93	0.032	0.962
Inverse Simpson	18.7	16.5	16.4	1.22	0.570

NC, negative control; OA, organic acid: fumaric; EO, essential oil: thymol.

Encap, microencapsulated; Non-encap, non-microencapsulated.

Inclusion levels: microencapsulated fumaric acid: 1.5 g/kg; microencapsulated thymol: 3 g/kg; non-microencapsulated fumaric acid: 0.9 g/kg; non-microencapsulated thymol: 0.6 g/kg.

p ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.