Abstract: As an interdisciplinary field of molecular biology and microbial ecology, molecular microbial ecology has been fast developed during last decade. Comparing to other fields, the application of molecular microbial ecology in traditional fermenta-tion industry was developed still in leading strings. The molecular microbial ecological techniques have been or could be used in traditional fermentation industry and consequent progress in this field were thus reviewed. Future trends of molecular ecological techniques combined with traditional fermentation industry were also discussed. It also emphasized on the importance of researching on molecular ecology of microorganisms in traditional fermentation industry.

Key words: microbial molecular ecology, community, function, traditional fermented food