TABLE 4.

Characterization of the rumen methanogens in finishing beef cattle ranked for residual methane.

	RME ranking1
Rumen methanogens	High	Medium	Low	SEM2	P-value
	n = 80	n = 96	n = 74
Genus
Methanobrevibacter	94.01	93.64	93.6	0.32	0.27
Methanosphaera	4.93a	5.22a	5.79b	0.39	<0.01
Methanobrevibacter clades
RO	45.25a	48.07ab	53.92b	4.57	<0.01
SGMT	52.11	49.6	45.59	4.45	0.08

¹ High = RME was > 0.5 SD above the mean; Medium = RME was ± 0.5 SD above and below the mean; Low = RME was > -0.5 SD below the mean.

² SEM = pooled standard error.

^a,b Least squares means within main effect and a row with different superscripts differ.