Methane (CH₄) is regarded as an important greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential 25 times higher than CO₂. Soil methanogens – organisms that generate CH₄ in the soil – participate in complex interactions, which determine the community structures and functions. Better understanding patterns in these interactions will help to address issues surrounding methane emissions. A recent study evaluated methane emissions and methanogenic archaeal communities. Beginning in rice paddies across Asia, a major source of CH₄ emissions. researchers measured archaea from 429 soil samples in 13 different regions in China. They found that network topological properties – which were correlated with mean annual temperature – were the chief predictor of CH₄ emissions. Methanogenic groups involved in commonly occurring links in the co-occurrence networks contributed the highest proportion of CH₄. Potential keystone taxa, including Methanobacterium, Methanocella, Methanothrix, and Methanosarcina were highly linked to functional methane-generation genes such as mcrA, fwdB, mtbA, and mtbC. These results suggest that coexistence patterns of microbes are closely tied to their functional significance implying a critical role for complex interaction networks in determining soil function.