Diet conversion experiment
Feces from each individual were collected in each room of the captive group facilities every month during the diet conversion experiment. A total of 180 fecal samples were taken for microbial community compositional analysis via high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing from the five captive giant panda cubs. Following quality assessment, a total of 168 fecal samples were subjected to sequencing and 108 of those samples were subjected to fungal ITS sequencing. The diet conversion experiment comprised three different periods, including the only milk diet period from 2 to 7 months old (OMD, 16S rRNA sequencing n=49; ITS sequencing n=29), the milk and bamboo mixed diet period from 8 to 13 months old (MBD, 16S rRNA sequencing n=74; ITS sequencing n=50), and the bamboo only diet period from 14 to 19 months old (OBD, 16S rRNA sequencing n=45; ITS sequencing n=29; metagenomic binning n=60) (Supplementary Table S2).