Figure 3.

(A) Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) of weighted, generalized, and unweighted UniFrac distances illustrating variation in microbial community structure associated with each ruminal component. The NMDS demonstrates clustering of 16S rRNA gene sequences from rumen fluid, pack, and mucosal microbial communities. Dashed lines and shaded areas represent 95% confidence ellipses for each ruminal micro-environment. (B) The relatedness of rumen fluid, pack, and mucosa microbial communities based on normalized ASVs. Hierarchical clustering was performed on generalized UniFrac distances using Ward's agglomeration method. Blue boxes (F) represent fluid communities, green boxes (P) represent pack communities, and gold boxes (S) represent mucosal communities. The barplot illustrates the relative abundance of microbial families within each individual sample. The 12 most abundant families across all samples are displayed in the legend.