## 3 Results
### Bacterial Communities in Fermented Meat Products from Different Origins
The Tuf387/765 sequence reads obtained by partial _tuf_ gene sequencing gave a more detailed view of the CNS communities present in the different fermented meat products (Figure 2). All species present in the mock community (RM3) were correctly identified. Sequences corresponding with several non-_Staphylococcus_ genera were also encountered, namely _Bacillus_, _Brochothrix_, _Carnobacterium_, and _Enterococcus_. _Brochothrix_ was encountered in Belgian, German, Italian, and Spanish fermented meat products. _Bacillus_, _Carnobacterium_, and _Enterococcus_ were only found in Spanish and German fermented meat products, although in the latter only a small number of reads (<0.3%) could be ascribed to these genera. Taking into account the only sequence reads attributed to _Staphylococcus_ species using partial _tuf_ gene sequencing, differences were found between the CNS communities of the fermented meat products from different countries (Figure 3). In Belgian fermented meat products, most sequence reads were assigned to _S. carnosus_, followed by _S. xylosus_. Additionally, _Staphylococcus pasteuri_, _S. sciuri_, _S. saprophyticus_, and _Staphylococcus vitulinus_ were found, albeit mostly in minor relative abundances. German fermented meat products were characterized by a large relative abundance of reads originating from _S. carnosus_, with _S. equorum_, _Staphylococcus gallinarum_, _S. sciuri_, and _S. xylosus_ occurring as minor fractions. CNS communities in Spanish fermented meat products exhibited the greatest species diversity, including _Staphylococcus arlettae_, _S. carnosus_, _S. equorum_, _S. gallinarum_, _Staphylococcus lentus_, _S. saprophyticus_, _S. sciuri_, _S. vitulinus_, and _S. xylosus_. In French and Italian fermented meat products, the majority of sequence reads was related to _S. xylosus_, followed by _S. equorum_, _S. carnosus_, _S. saprophyticus_, _S. vitulinus_, _S. succinus_, _S. gallinarum_, _Staphylococcus kloosii_, and _S. sciuri_. To highlight the greater resolution achieved when studying CNS communities by applying the aforementioned amplicon-based HTS method, the CNS species found in the present study were compared to those previously found culture-dependently in the same products (Table 3) [6]. Figure 2: Distribution of amplicon sequencing variants (ASVs) of a partial region of the _tuf_ gene in selected commercial fermented meat products originating from BE (Belgium), DE (Germany), ES (Spain), FR (France), and IT (Italy), with “a” and “b” annotations in the sample names representing biological duplicate samples from the same product. RM3 represents the mock community used to check the performance of the PCR assay and subsequent sequencing. A PERMANOVA indicated that the country of origin had a significant (\(p<0.05\)) impact on the composition of the microbial communities. Pairwise PERMANOVA tests showed that microbial communities from Spanish fermented meat products were significantly different from those found in fermented meat products from all other countries. German fermented meat products had different (\(p<0.05\)) microbial profiles than French, Italian, and Spanish variants. The microbial communities of Belgian fermented meat products were not significantly different from their German or French counterparts, whereas French fermented meat products had comparable microbial profiles to the Italian ones. SIMPER highlighted that differences in microbial communities were primarily due to the presence of _S. equorum_ in Spanish fermented meat products, _S. carnosus_ in Belgian and German ones, and _S. xylosus_ in French and Italian fermented meat products (Tables S1-S10).