Herbivorous rodents are essentially hindgut fermenters, but some rodents have a com- partmentalized stomach (forestomach and glandular stomach) in addition to a cecum. To elucidate the digestive mechanisms of such grass-eating rodents, we evaluated the production of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) as well as lactic acid by the forestomach and cecum of the East European vole (Microtus levis). In addition, we compared the microflora of both forestomach and cecum contents using 16S rRNA V3-V4 region amplicon analyses. We detected similar levels of VFAs and lactic acid from both the forestomach and cecum of the vole; acetic acid was most abundant (3,687–6,441 μg/g), and propionic acid (0–1,228 μg/g), butyric acid (619–2,124 μg/g), and lactic acid (71–1,613 μg/g) were also detected. No significant differences were observed between the contents of the forestomach and cecum. On the other hand, bacterial microflora differed between these portions of the intestine, even at the phylum level. Firmicutes was predominantly detected in the forestomach (93.3%), whereas Bacteroidetes (33.4%) and Firmicutes (59.0%) were dominant in the cecum. These results indicate that fermentation occurred in both the forestomach and cecum but was accomplished by different communities of microbiota.
