Metagenome of Huiyang bearded chickens

Residual feed intake (RFI), a heritable metric for feed efficiency, has been used in poultry breeding programs. We established two distinct chicken lines through 17 generations of selection: high RFI (HRFI, inefficient) and low RFI (LRFI, efficient) These lines not only differ significantly in gut microbial composition, but also exhibit marked differences in immune parameters. We performed metagenomic sequencing to identify significant different bacteria associated with immune.