This study compared the difference in microbial community and power generation capacity of air-cathode MFCs enriched under anode aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Results showed that MFCs successfully started with continuous air inputting to anode chamber. The aerobic enriched MFC produced comparable and even more electricity with the fuels of acetate, glucose and ethanol compared to the anaerobic MFC when returning to anaerobic condition. The two MFCs showed a slightly different microbial community for anode biofilms (a similarity of 77%), but a highly similar microbial community (a similarity of 97%) for anolyte microbes. The anode biofilm of aerobic enriched MFC showed the presence of some specific bacteria closely related to Clostridium sticklandii, Leucobacter komagatae and Microbacterium laevaniformans. The anaerobic enriched MFC found the presence of a large number of yeast Trichosporon sp. This research demonstrates that it is possible to enrich oxygen-tolerant anode respiring bacteria through purposely aeration in anode chamber. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.