Figure 1.

Diagrammatic representation of the ruminant digestive tract. Microbial digestion in the reticulo-rumen precedes gastric digestion which takes place in the abomasum, or true stomach. Values are presented for culturable anaerobic fungal populations (i.e., the number of thallus forming units per gram of dry matter, TFU g·DM⁻¹) in digesta taken from each organ of the digestive tract of grass-silage fed, 8-month-old growing steers. Values in parentheses represent the percentage of the fungal population that survived and were culturable after 7 days of drying digesta or faecal contents at ambient temperature. Data taken from Davies et al. [20].