Abstract
Microbial communities are central to flavor development in air-dried meats; however, whether similar microbial assemblages produce comparable metabolic outputs across different raw substrates under identical natural conditions remains unresolved. We hypothesized that beef and mutton matrices would differentially reorganize microbial-metabolite interaction networks despite environmental consistency. Air-dried beef jerky and air-dried mutton jerky produced under identical natural conditions in Xilingol League, Inner Mongolia, were analyzed using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing combined with derivatization-based GC-MS metabolomics. Both products exhibited highly similar community structures dominated by Lactobacillus (17-19%) and Halomonas (13-16%), yet substrate-associated enrichment was observed, with Staphylococcus prevailing in air-dried beef jerky and Ruminococcus and Enterobacter enriched in air-dried mutton jerky. Metabolomic profiling demonstrated clear interspecies separation, with 404 of 838 shared metabolites differing significantly (VIP > 1, P < 0.05), mainly involving amino acids, organic acids, and lipid-related compounds. Correlation analysis based on centered log-ratio transformation and Spearman's rank tests with FDR correction revealed structured positive-negative complementary association patterns among dominant genera. Genera such as Halomonas and Kocuria were predominantly positively associated with core metabolites, whereas Ruminococcus, Serratia, and Clostridia_UCG-014 exhibited opposing negative associations, forming coordinated metabolic complementarity networks. The specific metabolites involved differed between Air-dried beef jerky and air-dried mutton jerky, indicating substrate-dependent reorganization of microbial-metabolic linkages. These findings demonstrate that raw material composition reshapes metabolic outcomes despite similar microbial frameworks, providing mechanistic insight into species-specific flavor formation in traditional air-dried meats.