“…Daqu , a starter for baijiu fermentation, is an important source of microorganisms, flavor substances, and enzymes in fermented grains (He, Huang, Zhou, Wu, & Jin, 2019; Wang, Du, & Xu, 2017; Wang, Zhang, & Liu, 2016). Many studies on daqu have been performed in aspects of genomics (Li, Lin, Liu, Wang, & Luo, 2016), transcriptomics (Ali et al., 2019; Huang et al., 2017b), and metabolomics (Jin et al., 2019). The combination of metabolomics and metagenomics has been used to investigate the correlation between daqu flavor and microbes, and has revealed that Bacillales and Lactobacillales are closely positively associated with pyrazines and esters, respectively, whereas Aspergillus was associated with pyrazines, esters, and aromatics; moreover, microbial interactions in the core of daqu are stronger than those on the surface (Jin et al., 2019).…”