{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,31]],"date-time":"2026-10-31T03:41:44Z","timestamp":1793418104685,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,16]],"date-time":"2021-08-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1629072000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100002347","name":"Bundesministerium f\u00fcr Bildung und Forschung","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["03ZZ0832A"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["03ZZ0832A"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100002347","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100007537","name":"Freie Universit\u00e4t Berlin","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100007537","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Strategies to combat microbiota-associated health problems are of high interest in pig production. Successful intervention strategies with beneficial long-term effects are still missing. Most studies on pig microbiota have been conducted under standardized experimental conditions, but the situation in commercial farms differs dramatically. This study describes the fecal microbiota in German commercial pig farms under practical conditions. The study is part of the larger project \u201cOptibiom\u201d that aims to use bacterial composition and farm metadata to formulate tailor-made solutions for farm-specific health maintenance strategies. Special consideration is given to the sow-piglet relationship. Fecal samples from sows and their piglets were collected at two time points each in 20 different farms (sows ante- and postpartum and piglets before and after weaning). The extracted DNA was sequenced with Illumina 16S rDNA sequencing. For data analysis and visualization, differential abundance analyses, as well as hierarchical clustering and nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) were performed. A new \u201cfamily unit\u201d was implemented to compare farms based on the association between the microbiota in sows and their offspring. There are distinct changes in the microbial communities in sows before and after birth as well as in suckling and post-weaning piglets. The suckling pig microbiota is particularly different from all other groups and shows a lower bacterial diversity. While dominant genera in antepartum sows further displace the abundance of non-dominant genera postpartum, the opposite was true for piglets, where non-dominant bacteria in the suckling phase became dominant after weaning. The family unit for sows and their piglets led to separate cluster formation for some farms. The results indicate that the sow-piglet relationship is one driving force for the observed differences of the pig farms. The next step in the analysis will be the combination of metadata (feeding, housing and management practices) to find farm-specific differences that can be exploited to formulate a farm-specific health maintenance strategy.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0256112","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,16]],"date-time":"2021-08-16T14:17:49Z","timestamp":1629123469000},"page":"e0256112","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":21,"title":["Characterization of the fecal microbiota of sows and their offspring from German commercial pig farms"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3139-0705","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Anja","family":"L\u00fchrmann","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ksenia","family":"Ovadenko","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Justinus","family":"Hellmich","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Christoph","family":"Sudendey","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3748-0071","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Vitaly","family":"Belik","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"J\u00fcrgen","family":"Zentek","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wilfried","family":"Vahjen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,16]]},"reference":[{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0256112.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"30","DOI":"10.2527\/af.2016-0031","article-title":"The role of gut microbiota in the health and disease of pigs","volume":"6","author":"JM Fouhse","year":"2016","journal-title":"Anim Front"},{"issue":"8","key":"pone.0256112.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e1001631","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pbio.1001631","article-title":"Mom knows best: the universality of maternal microbial transmission","volume":"11","author":"LJ Funkhouser","year":"2013","journal-title":"PLoS Biol"},{"key":"pone.0256112.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"88","DOI":"10.1186\/s40104-019-0397-7","article-title":"Maternal imprinting of the neonatal microbiota colonization in intrauterine growth restricted piglets: a review","volume":"10","author":"L Jiang","year":"2019","journal-title":"J Anim Sci Biotechnol"},{"key":"pone.0256112.ref004","first-page":"502","article-title":"Structure and Function of the Fecal Microbiota in Diarrheic Neonatal Piglets","volume":"8","author":"Q Yang","year":"2017","journal-title":"Front Microbiol"},{"key":"pone.0256112.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"139","DOI":"10.1186\/s12917-015-0419-4","article-title":"Characterization of the bacterial gut microbiota of piglets suffering from new neonatal porcine diarrhoea","volume":"11","author":"ML Hermann-Bank","year":"2015","journal-title":"BMC Vet Res"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0256112.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"225","DOI":"10.1354\/vp.43-3-225","article-title":"The comparative pathology of Clostridium difficile-associated disease","volume":"43","author":"MK Keel","year":"2006","journal-title":"Vet Pathol"},{"key":"pone.0256112.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"139","DOI":"10.1186\/s12917-015-0419-4","article-title":"Characterization of the bacterial gut microbiota of piglets suffering from new neonatal porcine diarrhoea","volume":"11","author":"ML Hermann-Bank","year":"2015","journal-title":"BMC Vet Res"},{"issue":"10","key":"pone.0256112.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"851","DOI":"10.1016\/j.tim.2017.05.004","article-title":"Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis in Postweaning Piglets: Understanding the Keys to Health","volume":"25","author":"R Gresse","year":"2017","journal-title":"Trends Microbiol"},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0256112.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"140","DOI":"10.2323\/jgam.60.140","article-title":"Assessment of fecal bacterial diversity among healthy piglets during the weaning transition","volume":"60","author":"EA, B. 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