Abstract
Plant leaf material is difficult for vertebrates to digest. Voles, despite being among the smallest herbivorous mammal species, achieve high digestive efficiencies. The role that coprophagy may play in achieving efficient digestion was examined in three species of British voles using an isotope of ruthenium as an inert marker. The effect of change in diet quality on coprophagy was also considered. There were considerable differences in the recovery time for 95% of the marker to pass through the gut, and in field and water voles a seed diet required three times longer for passage than a plant leaf diet, while bank voles treated both diets similarly
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