Temperature regulates methane production through the function centralization of microbial community in anaerobic digestion

•Temperature-regulated mechanism in AD process is revealed by metatranscriptome.•Methanogenesis and oxidative phosphorylation are enhanced at elevated temperature.•Function centralization is crucial for the efficiency of AD system function.•Temperature regulates AD process by the centralization of functional pathways. Temperature is crucial for the performance of anaerobic digestion process. In this study of anaerobic digestion of swine manure, the relationship between the microbial gene expression and methane production at different temperatures (25–55°C) was revealed through metatranscriptomic analysis. Daily methane production and total biogas production increased with temperature up to 50°C, but decreased at 55°C. The functional gene expression showed great variation at different temperatures. The function centralization (opposite to alpha-diversity), assessed by the least proportions of functional pathways contributing for at least 50% of total reads positively correlated to methane production. Temperature regulated methane production probably through reducing the diversity of functional pathways, but enhancing central functional pathways, so that most of cellular activities and resource were invested in methanogenesis and related pathways, enhancing the efficiency of conversion of substrates to methane. This research demonstrated the importance of function centralization for efficient system functioning.