本研究旨在解析林麝未成年组(n=10)和成年组(n=10)之间的菌群差异。收集林麝新鲜粪便，提取总DNA，利用带标签的通用引物扩增16S rRNA V3-V4 区，使用Illumina Miseq 300PE测序平台对扩增产物进行Miseq双端测序，通过计算 ACE 和Shannon 等多样性指数，以及微生物组成成分和距离聚类分析，揭示组成结构与差异。α多样性分析表明成年组微生物的多样性丰富度略高于未成年组，但不存在显著差异性(P > 0.05) 。未成年组和成年组均是（厚壁菌门）Firmicutes、（拟杆菌门）Bacteroidetes和（变形菌门）Proteobacteria所占的比例较高。成年组Proteobacteria所占的比例明显高，而Firmicutes所占的比例较低。LEfSe分析表明有12个显著差异的细菌分类。两组在Firmicutes门上存在较少显著差异的细菌，而在Proteobacteria上存在较多显著差异的细菌。本研究证明在不同年龄阶段，微生物的丰富度和多样性不存在显著差异，细菌的组成成分也相同。但是在组成比例上存在差异性，间接反映了不同年龄阶段营养吸收的不同需求。

The aim of this study was to analyze the gut microbiota differences of forest musk deer juveniles (n=10) and adults (n=10). To gain insights into this, total DNA was extracted from fresh fecal samples and the microbial composition was characterized by sequencing V3-V4 hypervariable regions of 16SrRNA gene using an Illumina MiSeq 300PE in pair end mode. Sequencing data were processed for quality control and microbial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were assigned. To access gut bacterial enrichment and differences, alpha-diversity indices were calculated with respect to age. The abundance and diversity of microbes in the adult group were slightly higher than those in the juvenile group, but not statistically significantly so ( P > 0.05). The dominant gut microbiota mainly belonged to the phyla Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria in both groups. In particular, a significantly greater proportion of Proteobacteria and a lower proportion of the Firmicutes were found in the adult group. LEfSe analysis revealed 12 distinct bacterial classifications. Both adult and juvenile forest musk deer showed significant differences in the composition of Proteobacteria and Firmicutes. This study shows evidence that there are no signif-icant differences in the abundance and diversity of gut microbiota among adult and juvenile forest musk deer. Further, the composition of bacteria is remains the same, but the proportion of bacteria in the two groups was different which indirectly reflects the different necessity of nutrition ab-sorption at different ages.