Rumen microbial community comprising of bacteria,
archaea, fungi, and protozoa is characterized not only
by the high population density but also by the remarkable
diversity and the most complex microecological interactions
existing in the biological world. This unprecedented biodiversity
is quite far from full elucidation as only about 15–
20 % of the rumen microbes are identified and characterized
till date using conventional culturing and microscopy.
However, the last two decades have witnessed a paradigm
shift from cumbersome and time-consuming classical methods
to nucleic acid-based molecular approaches for deciphering
the rumen microbial community. These techniques
are rapid, reproducible and allow both the qualitative and
quantitative assessment of microbial diversity. This review
describes the different molecular methods and their applications
in elucidating the rumen microbial community.