With pretreated cornstalks as raw material

a mesophilic batch fermentation study using a 10-L anaerobic reactor was carried out to investigate biogas production rate and prokaryotic composition. Fermentation started rapidly

and a peak in biogas production appeared after 3 days with volumetric gas production rate of 0.97 L·L-1·d-1. The rates of biogas production and methane production during 46 days were 236.84 ml·(g VS)-1 and 132.23 ml·(g VS)-1

respectively. During the fermentation process

prokaryotic composition was investigated using pyrosequencing technique. Prokaryotic diversity increased with the fermentation process

and prokaryotic composition shifted dramatically compared to the initial stage. Archaea was dominated by Methanomicrobia (89.63% of total archaeal reads)

followed by Thermoplasmata (8.51%). About 22-29 bacterial phyla were identified

including Bacteroidetes (46.07% of total reads)

Proteobacteria (20.51%)

and Firmicutes (13.09%) as the predominant bacterial communities. Our research provides important implications on the regulation of prokaryotic composition for biogas production using cornstalks.