Fig. 1

The differences in rectum microbiota diversity and structure between HADG and LADG goats (6-month-old, n = 10 each group). A The Chao1 and Shannon indexes of rectum microbiota. B Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) of rectum microbiota at the ASV level based on the Bray-Curtis dissimilarity. Dissimilarity was analyzed using ANOSIM statistical tests with 999 permutations. C Significantly different rectum bacterial genera between HADG and LADG goats. D Heatmap showing association between rectum bacterial taxa (average relative abundance > 0.1%) and the growth rate of all young goats (n = 76, Spearman’s correlation, P < 0.05). The differences in data in (A) and (C) were tested by the Wilcon rank-sum test. The bars represent mean ± SEM. ^*P < 0.05, ^**P < 0.01