3.2 | Raw read quality of DNA sequencing
Metabarcoding dietary analysis successfully amplified sequences of plant
items from 12 Tan sheep lambs. Of the total fecal compound samples (n =
24) collected, all samples amplified the target ITS2 region. A total of
2,463,964 raw pair-end reads were obtained from the MiSeq run after
demultiplexing and quality filtering. Irrelevant phyla, e.g., Ascomycota
and Chlorophyta, were also generated, but our diet analysis focused only
on phytogroups. Of these, 1,429,952 sequences were retained composing of
324 OTUs. Of those, 92 OTUs with a high percentage of reads (99.76%)
were conserved (threshold: > 0.01% of the total).
Rarefaction curves for each individual sample reached saturation in all
cases (Figure 1a). The grazing and time-limited grazing samples had 68
OTUs in common (Figure 1b).