Fig. 1

Box plots of the (A) observed OTUs and (B) Shannon diversity index for feed particle-associated (FPA, left) and liquid-associated bacteria (LAB, right) samples by treatment. Treatments were: control diet (no SRU), U28 = control plus 0.28% SRU, U56 = control plus 0.56% SRU, and MU35 = control diet was modified by partially replacing soybean protein with 0.35% SRU (DM basis). Different lowercase letters within each sampling time represent different means (P < 0.05). Error bars indicate ± standard error of the mean. The box in the plots indicates the interquartile range (IQR) (middle 50% of the data), the middle line represents the median value, and the whiskers represents 1.5 times the IQR