Fig. 4

Box plots of microbiota α-diversity indexes for gut regions by season: (a) richness (number of observed OTUs), (b) abundance and evenness (Shannon index), (c) minimum total length of all phylogenetic branches in the community (Faith’s Phylogenetic Diversity index), (d) abundance-weighted evolutionary distinctiveness (AED). Wilcoxon Signed Rank test P-values identified as follows: *** P ≤ 0.001, ** 0.001 < P ≤ 0.01, * 0.01 < P ≤ 0.05