I want to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisors at the Institute of Animal Nutrition (FLI), Prof. Sven Dänicke and Dr. Ulrich Meyer for their scientific guidance, giving me a great scope for development and supporting us through the first months of Till´s life. Without their extensive and kind support the preparation of the different manuscripts, this thesis, as well as my facilely return to work after the maternity leave would not have been possible. I further thank Prof. Gerhard Breves for his scientific input and advice, as well as the joyful time when residing at his institute. His academic work and heritage is greatly acknowledged. I also thank Prof. Jürgen Hummel for the scientific exchange and support during the writing of the manuscripts and thesis. I really enjoyed the scientific discussions with him, due to his friendly, kind and calm nature, and hope we will have more possibilities to collaborate in future.
I would like to show my gratitude to the members of the Institute of Physiology (TiHo Hannover) for their support and guidance during the microbiome sample preparation and analysis (Susanne Riede, Kerstin Kiri, Marion Burmester and Karin Hustedt). A very big thank you goes to Kerstin Kiri who has helped me through the highs and lows of the SSCP analysis and made the stay at the laboratory extremely joyful.
I further would like to thank Christian Hundsrucker and Pascal Weigold from Microsynth AG (Balgach, Switzerland) and Andres Buser for their outstanding consultancy, professionalism and kind help in a bottleneck-phase of this thesis. Without their help, the manuscripts would not have attained such a high quality and I really enjoyed their input.
I send a big thank you to Mark Gardener, who has spontaneously assisted us with his great knowledge in statistical analysis of community ecology. I really enjoyed this collaboration due to his willingness to teach and great patience. I hope we will get the chance one day to meet in person!
I am further indebted to the the co-workers at the Institute of Animal Nutrition, namely the members of the immune-nutrition group (Jana Frahm, Nicola Mickenautsch, Lara Lindner and Elenia Scholz), basic-analytics group (Liane Hüther, Kathrin Hillendahl, Hans Eckardt, Axel Jagow, Johanna Sturm and Susanne Stock), the experimental station (Florian Mühlhaus, Jonas Knäpple, Dirk Wolters, Annerose Junghans, Katrin Kuhrmeier, Karin Rothe, Andreas Thies), administrational staff (Sabine Hartinger, Gudrun Mittelbach, Vanessa Tabatt, Sigrid Herweg and Britta Immenroth), Dirk von Soosten, and many of my fellow doctoral students at the FLI (Caroline Drong, Reka Tienken, Kirsten Schulz, Mohammad Ebrahem, Marc-Alexander Liebholdt, Wendy Liermann, Katrin Stelter, Marleen Paulick, Janine Winkler, Julia Hartwiger,
Rolf Schmitz und Karina Schnabel), as well as Institute of Physiology (Kristin Elfers, Melanie Eger, Patrick Lange and Lisa Marholt), and the external friends and colleagues including Gero Seyfang and the masterstudents Stefanie Ruesink, Sandra Jostmeier and Susanne Künzel and our collaborating partners at Haus Riswick, University of Halle, University of Bonn, University of Hohenheim, TiHo Hannover and the University of Wageningen.
A special thank you goes to Jan Dijkstra and Kasper Dieho. Kasper has become a great friend over the course of this thesis and I always enjoyed his enthusiastic and positive nature. Jan´s passion for critical discussion and outstanding high-quality research was and is very inspiring.
He has supported me through the finalization of an earlier manuscript just days before my son was born. I see in him a great mentor and friend.
I also want to thank Prof. Alexander Starke for creating the room and time needed to finalize the last two manuscripts as well as this thesis. I enjoy his creativity and deeply respect his devotion and passion for cattle veterinary medicine as well as the production sector as a whole.
I further would like to thank my new colleagues at the clinic for cattle and swine in Leipzig, especially Fanny, Wolf and Romy, for motivating me and always being there for me, whenever I needed a shoulder. They have become great friends and I deeply admire their strength, endurance and passion.
I owe my deepest gratitude to my friends and family for understanding that time was scarce and I was not always an easy companion during the last few months.
I especially want to thank Anja and her family for being such a great help and friends. Anja, you are a wonderful “Tagesmutter” and we feel blessed that Till could stay his first year with you. You supported his sunny nature and playfully managed his temper. You gave me the possibility to go freely to work, knowing Till is in good hands. We all miss you.
I cannot find the words to express my gratitude to my partner Erik. Without his extensive support and his love, I would not be where I am now. He is a wonderful and caring father, motivating me to get the best out of me. Instead of telling me to step back, he tells me to stay strong and fight. Love is not to hold somebodies hand when they are giving up, but to show them how to push her/his own boundaries and that giving up is not an option.
… and of course, Till… he is my sunshine and eternal source of joy and tranquility. Children indeed make you relativize everything.