Asaresultofvarioushumanactivities,suchasincreaseinhumanpopulation,decrease in arable land due to soil degradation, urbanization, industrialization and associated increase in the demand for livestock products, dramatic changes are occurring in the global ruminant livestock sector. These changes includeshift inthesize of regional livestock populations and in the types of management and feeding systems under which ruminant livestock are held, and increased demand of a wider range of quality attributes from animal agriculture, not just of the products themselves but also of the methods used in their production. The livestock sector will need to respond to newchallengesofincreasinglivestockproductivitywhileprotectingenvironmentand human health and conservingbiodiversity and natural resources. The micro-organisms in the digestive tracts of ruminant livestock have a profound in?uence on the conversion offeedinto end products, which can impact on the- imal and theenvironment. As the livestock sector grows particularly in developing countries, there will be an increasing need to understand these processes for b- ter management and use ofbothfeed and other natural resources that underpinthe development of sustainable feeding systems.

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Foreword; Introduction; Editorial Note; Part 1. Designing in-vivo Microbial Ecology Studies; 1.1. Experimental designs for rumen microbiology, Adrian R. Egan; Part 2. Classical Methods for Isolation, Enumeration, Cultivation and Functional Assays of Rumen Microbes; 2.1. Rumen bacteria, Christopher S. McSweeney, Stuart E. Denman and Roderick I. Mackie; 2.2. Bacteriophages, Athol V. Klieve. 2.3. Methanogenic archaea, Keith N. Joblin; 2.4. Anaerobic fungi, Michael K. Theodorou, Jayne Brookman and Anthony P.J. Trinci; 2.5. Ciliate protozoa, Burk A. Dehority; Part 3. PCR-Based Methods for Analysis of Populations and Gene Expression; 3.1. Nucleic acid extraction, oligonucleotide probes and PCR methods, Zhongtang Yu and Robert J. Forster; 3.2. Quantitative (real-time) PCR, Stuart E. Denman and Christopher S. McSweeney; Part 4. Molecular Fingerprinting Techniques for Genotypic Analysis of Pure Cultures and Microbial Communities; 4.1. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, Svetlana A. Kocherginskaya, Isaac K.O. Cann and Roderick I. Mackie; 4.2. Bacteriophage populations, Athol V. Klieve and Rosalind A. Gilbert; 4.3. Anaerobic fungal populations, Jayne L. Brookman and Matthew J. Nicholson; 4.4. RAPD, RFLP, T-RFLP, AFLP, RISA, Stuart E. Denman, Makoto Mitsumori and Christopher S. McSweeney; Part 5. DNA Clone Libraries of Microbial Communities; 5.1. 16S/18S ribosomal DNA clone library analysis of rumen microbial diversity, André-Denis G. Wright, Kiyoshi Tajima and Rustam I. Aminov; Part 6. Use of Small Subunit Ribosomal RNA Directed Oligonucleotide Probes for Microbial Population Studies; 6.1. Northern blot analysis to investigate the abundance of micro-organisms, Denis O. Krause; 6.2. Whole cell probing with fluorescently labelled probes for in situ analysis of microbial populations, Linda L. Blackall; 6.3. Combined fluorescence in situ hybridization and microautoradiography (FISH-MAR), Maneesha P. Ginige; Part 7. Genomic Analysis of Microbial Ecosystems; 7.1.Metagenomic analysis of the microbiomes in ruminants and other herbivores Mark Morrison, Sarah E. Adams, Karen E. Nelson and Graeme T. Attwood; Chapterwise Keywords; Keyword Index.