Bacterial and fungal communities associated with the production of a Nigerian fermented beverage,Otika

Otika is a nigerian indigenous alcoholic beverage produced from sorghum. the present work investigates the microbial community and exhibition of mutualism or antagonistic interaction during the production of 'otika'. the microbes were isolated,enumerated and identified by pour plate,streak,morphological and biochemical characterization methods. microbial interactions between the isolates identified were investigated by agar well assay technique. total bacterial,fungal,lactic acid bacterial and enterobacteriaceae counts,respectively,increased from 1.6× 106 ± 0.33 cfu//ml,3.4 × 105 ± 0.10 cfu/ml,3.0 × 106 ± 0.0 cfu/ml and 1.5× 106 ± 0.15 cfu/ml to 4.6 × 107 ± 0.30 cfu/ml,4.5 × 106 ± 0.10 cfu/ml,9.0 × 107 ± 0.05 cfu/ml and 3.7 × 107 ± 0.2 cfu/ml on the sorghum grains and at early stages of fermentation. later,bacterial load decreased steadily along the fermentation period while enterobacteriaceae decreased until it was undetectable. bacillus species,staphylococcus aureus,enterobacter cloacae,escherichia coli,lactobacillus plantarum,lactobacillus fermentum,pediococcus acidilactici,enterococcus faecalis,leuconostoc mesenteroides,saccharomyces cerevisiae,saccharomyces species,candida krusei,candida tropicalis,aspergillus species and penicilium italicum were identified. microbial occurrence through the production stage ranged from 33.3% each for e. cloacae,a. fumigatus and penicilium italicum to 100% each for l. plantarum,s. cerevisiae and c. tropicalis. yeasts and lactic acid bacteria exhibited positive interaction. there were no antagonistic interactions that existed among l. plantarum,l. fermentum,leuconostoc mesenteroides and s. cerevisiae whereas both were antagonistic against other bacteria. the present study sheds more light on the populations and types of bacteria and fungi with their associations that characterized the production of otika which will be useful information for production of consistent quality otika. © 2017 jordan journal of biological sciences.