Lactic acid bacteria were cultivated from the gut of insects and analyzed. The gut samples were obtained from Anoplocnemis dallasi, Apis mellifera, Diestrammena coreana, Gonolabis marginalis, and Mycalesis gotama. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that the culture-dependent lactic acid bacteria isolated from the insect gut samples belonged to the genera Enterococcus, Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Leuconostoc, and Weissella. The genera Enterococcus and Lactococcus were dominant, constituting 57% and 25% of the isolated strains, respectively. The distribution of lactic acid bacteria was found to differ according to the insect species. However, because culture-dependent methods identify only a portion of lactic acid bacterial communities, the use of culture-independent methods in future studies will be required to complement the methods used in the present study.

The fermented food Shindari is a low-alcohol drink that is indigenous to Jeju island, South Korea. In this study,the diversity of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) in Shindari was determined using a culture-dependent method. LAB were culti-vated from Shindari samples using two different LAB culture media. Twenty-seven strains were randomly selected and iden-tified by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. The identified LAB strains comprised 6 species within the Enterococcus,Lactobacillus and Pediococcus genera. Five of the species, namely Enterococcus faecium, Lactobacillus fermentum, L. plan-tarum, Pediococcus pentosaceus and P. acidilactici were isolated from MRS medium, while 1 species, L. pentosus, was iso-lated from Rogosa medium. Most of the isolated strains were identified as members of the genus Lactobacillus (78%). Thisstudy provides basic microbiological information on the diversity of LAB and provides insight into the ecological roles ofLAB in Shindari.