Repeated inoculation with fresh rumen fluid before or during weaning modulates the microbiota composition and co-occurrence of the rumen and colon of lambs

Table 3 α-Diversity measurements of the microbiota in the rumen and colon content of different inoculation groups

	Inoculum (n = 6)	Inoculation (n = 5)^a			SEM	P-value
	Inoculum (n = 6)	Control	IBW	IDW	SEM	Inoculum vs. lambs^b	Inoculation	Triplets^c
Rumen content
OTUs	571^d	507^b	477^b	477^b	14.5	0.008	0.347	0.039
Chao1	588^a	545^b	512^b	521^b	12.6	0.016	0.305	0.016
Shannon	7.63^a	5.19^b	5.87^b	5.25^b	0.3	0.004	0.340	0.678
Colon content
OTUs		411	397	401	19.1		0.902	0.003
Chao1		482	452	435	19.6		0.514	0.039
Shannon		5.38	5.12	5.62	0.21		0.659	0.224

^a: IBW Inoculation before weaning, IDW Inoculation during weaning
^b: Inoculum was compared to all the lamb groups by the Kruskal-Wallis test
^c: Lambs from same triplets were considered as blocks factor
^d: Values with different letters within a row were significantly different according to pairwise comparison

ISSN: 1471-2180