Table 5.

Relative abundance of the dominant phylum with an average relative abundance ≥ 0.1%.

Item	AY 1		YL 2		Pooled SEM	p Value
	Heifers	Steers	Heifers	Steers		Breed	Sex	B × S
Bacteroidetes	63.6	60.1	64.6	56.0	3.57	0.677	0.100	0.482
Firmicutes	30.5	29.8	29.3	38.6	3.74	0.320	0.260	0.187
Proteobacteria	2.91b	6.69a	3.24b	2.09b	1.11	0.063	0.246	0.033
.Actinobacteria	0.956	0.888	0.369	0.592	0.345	0.209	0.824	0.676
Patescibacteria	0.600	0.637	0.463	0.692	0.129	0.754	0.309	0.463
Fibrobacteres	0.287	0.467	0.524	0.302	0.120	0.766	0.864	0.103
Spirochaetes	0.339	0.360	0.461	0.321	0.070	0.558	0.396	0.255
Verrucomicrobia	0.226	0.300	0.371	0.401	0.0470	0.013	0.278	0.641
Desulfobacteria	0.199	0.226	0.268	0.328	0.0273	0.003	0.118	0.553
Cyanobacteria	0.173	0.299	0.201	0.255	0.0598	0.890	0.140	0.555
Others	0.203	0.271	0.208	0.389	0.0453	0.178	0.009	0.218

¹ AY, Angus × Yiling cattle; ² YL, Yiling cattle. Means followed by different letters in the same row are significant at the p < 0.05.