In the digestive tract of all higher organisms’ complex microbial communities ("microbiomes") are found. In human research, this topic has been studied with increasing intensity for several years, particularly about the importance of the microbiome for health and disease prevention.
There has been no systematic and institutionally anchored microbiome research with farm animals in Germany. Although the microbiome of farm animals is of paramount importance with regard to global food security, microbial food quality, animal health, environmental impact and the use of globally limited nutrient resources.
The "Hohenheim Center for Livestock Microbiome Research" (HoLMiR) will close this gap in the research landscape and pursues the goal of enabling sustainable and leading microbiome research with livestock. It will characterize the variability of the digestive tract microbiome and explain the complex interrelationships that exist with the animal, its diet and genome. In the long term, this will be used to develop strategies for improving animal breeding, animal welfare, resource utilization, food quality and environmental impact. The new research centers create the infrastructural prerequisites for this research.
