A systematic approach re-analyzing the effects of temperature disturbance on the microbial community of mesophilic anaerobic digestion

Microbial communities are key drivers of ecosystem processes, but their behavior in disturbed environments is difficult to measure. How microbial community composition and function respond disturbances is a common challenge in biomedical, environmental, agricultural, and bioenergy research. A novel way to solve this problem is to use a systems-level perspective and describe microbial communities as networks. Based on a mesophilic anaerobic digestion system of swine manure as a tool, we propose a simple framework to investigate changes in microbial communities via compositions, metabolic pathways, genomic properties and interspecies relationships in response to a long-term temperature disturbance. After temperature disturbance, microbial communities tend towards a competitive interaction network with higher GC content and larger genome size. Based on microbial interaction networks, communities responded to the disturbance by showing a transition from acetotrophic (Methanotrichaceae and Methanosarcinaceae) to methylotrophic methanogens (Methanomassiliicoccaceae and Methanobacteriaceae) and a fluctuation in rare biosphere taxa. To conclude, this study may be important for exploring the dynamic relationships between disturbance and microbial communities as a whole, as well as for providing researchers with a better understanding of how changes in microbial communities relate to ecological processes.