Whose habitat is this? What are their geno-, pheno- and ecotypes? These fervent questions in gastrointestinal microbiology are still, for the most part, unanswered when it comes to what decisively influences pig host nutrition and health: the individual bacterial species of the porcine mucosal gastric and small intestinal microbiota. Lactic acid-producing bacteria in syntrophism with lactic acid-fermenting bacteria, i.e. communities of 'lactic acid-related bacteria' (LARB), constitute the predominant and generally most beneficial part of this microbiota. The present book gives answers to the aforesaid questions. Outlined in six major chapters, the book starts off by reviewing the microecology of the pig proximal gastrointestinal tract as well as the different groups of LARB (chapter II). This leads over to the methodological chapters III and IV which explain the application of two newly developed culture-based approaches for isolation of novel species of manganese catalase-positive lactobacilli and mucin-fermenting LARB. Chapters V and VI contain the valid taxonomic descriptions of two novel LARB species, namely Olsenella umbonata Kraatz et al. 2011 and Veillonella magna Kraatz and Taras 2008 from porcine mucosal jejunum. Chapter VIII ends the book with a discussion of the ecological status, niches and host relationship of O. umbonata and V. magna, thus taking the reader back to the microecology of chapter II. weiterlesen