Sas 9.1.3 statistical analysis software for windows

Morphological features (shape, presence/absence of oocyst micropyle, and polar granule), and morphometric data (length, L and width, W) were registered for each of the observed oocysts and sporocysts in a dataset created by using the Excel software, version 2016. The diverse shapes of the oocysts were evaluated using the shape index (S.I.) value, expressed as the L/W ratio: spherical (S.I. = 1.0), subspherical (S.I. = 1.0–1.1), and “ellipsoidal complex” (S.I. > 1.1), including ellipsoidal or ovoidal oocysts (Berto et al., 2014b ). Normally distributed, continuous data of the oocysts and sporocysts (i.e. L, W, S.I.), and their observed surface value (S.V.) expressed by the formula [(L/2) × (W/2) × π], were analyzed using ANOVA linear model, SAS 9.1.3 statistical analysis software for Windows (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, version 9.4), which included the fixed effect of groups represented by the contents of the 2 different intestinal tracts (caeca vs. cloaca). Least square means were obtained, and post-hoc pairwise comparisons were performed using the Bonferroni correction. A statistical significance was considered with a value of P ≤ 0.05.