Fig. 6
Relative abundances of representative cecal bacteria showing significant enrichment in healthy and NE-infected chickens supplemented with DCA or butyrate. Day-of-hatch male Cobb broilers were supplemented with or without 1 g/kg NaB, 0.75 g/kg DCA (DCA1), 1.5 g/kg DCA (DCA2), or a mixture of 1 g/kg NaB and 0.75 g/kg DCA (NaB + DCA1) or 1 g/kg NaB and 1.5 g/kg DCA (NaB + DCA2). Six groups of animals were subjected to NE, while the remaining group was mock-infected. The cecal digesta were collected from 12 animals/group on d 17 and subjected to 16S rRNA gene sequencing. A Relative abundances (%) of C. perfringens, pathobionts, and two Clostridium species. B Relative abundances (%) of SCFA-producing bacteria and a Bacillus species. C Relative abundances (%) of lactobacilli, an Erysipelotrichaceae species, and a Sphingomonas species. In the box and whisker plots, each box indicates median, 25th and 75th percentiles, while whiskers extend to 1.5 interquartile range. Significance was measured using the Kruskal–Wallis test and post hoc pairwise Wilcoxon rank sum test, and the significance (P < 0.05) was denoted by different superscripts