| dc.description.abstract | Fermentation has sustained human communities for thousands of years. Through most of that time, humans unknowingly used microbes in food production, especially dairy. It wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that the first bacterium was isolated from milk. This bacterium is classified in the group of bacteria known today as the lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The microbes in milk, especially LAB, play an essential role in dairy production, contributing to a varied array of products with rich flavors, aromas, and textures. However, the microbes in milk can also cause spoilage and disease, which has resulted in hygiene regulations and microbial standards for modern dairy production. Consequently, traditional methods of dairying and their unique microbial taxa are being lost to industrialized practices, and the microbial diversity remains unknown. Even though dairy production has largely become globalized, the localized production of traditional dairy still exists in certain regions of the world as a major subsistence strategy, one such location is Mongolia. Some of the products from traditional dairy have been investigated to a greater or lesser extent. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the predominant LAB associated with dairy produced in Khövsgöl, the northern-most province of Mongolia, from cow and yak milk. Using two LAB media, 204 LAB isolates were recovered, constituting 15 different genera and 35 distinct species. The recovered LAB are species commonly found in milk and dairy. Phylogenetic analysis confirmed the classification of each LAB species recovered. Further investigations include mining the genome sequences of each isolate for unique characteristics and maintaining these bacterial cultures in an international culture collection. | en_US |
