Data from: Microbial composition play the leading role in volatile fatty acid production in the fermentation of different scale of corn stover with rumen fluid

Rumen fluid is a natural and green biocatalyst that can efficiently
degrade biomass into volatile fatty acid (VFA) used to produce
value-added materials. But the essence of high degradation
efficiency in the rumen has not been fully analyzed. This study
investigated the contribution of substrate structure
and microbial composition to volatile fatty acid production in
the fermentation of corn stover. The ball milled corn stover were
innovatively applied to ferment with the rumen fluid collected at
different digestion times. Exogeneous cellulase was also added to
the ruminal fermentation to further reveal the inner
mechanism. With prolonged digestion time, the microbial community
relative abundance levels of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes
increased from 29.98% to 72.74% and decreased from 51.76% to
22.11%, respectively. The highest VFA production of the corn
stover was achieved via treatment with the rumen fluid collected at 24
h which was up to 9508 mg/L. The ball milled corn stover achieved
high VFA production because of the more accessible substrate
structure. The application of exogenous cellulase has no
significant influence to the ruminal fermentation. The microbial
community abundance contributed more to the VFA
production compared with the substrate structures.