Gut microbiota of rabbit females according to the annual reproductive success and age
Résumé
We studied the richness and evenness of bacterial community in hard faeces samples from adult rabbit females according to their annual reproductive success and age. The annual reproductive success (number of offspring sold in 1 yr) did not explain the observed variability in these parameters. However, the age-related factor explained the observed variability. Species richness of faeces from young animals (first artificial insemination, AI) was 1.6 times higher than that observed in animals inseminated 9 times (P<0.05). With respect to the evenness, we observed a reduction of 2.0 times between AI1 and AI9 (P<0.05).