Changes in methanogenic pathway at low temperature were studied by incubation experiments of sediment slurries from the littoral zone of Reservoir Paldang. Methane production rates in sediment slurries increased exponentially between $5＾{circ}C$and $45＾{circ}C$, reached a maximum rate of $7.4;nmol;{cdot};g^{-1};{cdot};h^{-1}$ at $45＾{circ}C$, and then declined to low rate. The shift of incubation temperature from high temperature ($30＾{circ}C$) to lowtemperature ($15＾{circ}C$) resulted in a decrease of methane production rate and of hydrogen accumulation rate, and the transient accumulation of acetate concentration. Chlorofarm inhibited perfectly methanogenesis and resulted in the accumulation of hydrogen and acetate as immediate precursors for metltane formation at both incubation temperatures of $15＾{circ}C$ and $30＾{circ}C$. In terms of equivalent methane which was calculated from the two intermediary metabolites accumulated in absence of methanogenesis, methane production from acetate was accounted for 14% of total methanogenesis at $30＾{circ}C$ and 75% at $15＾{circ}C$, respectively. When the high acetate concentrations above 19 mM were added to sediment slurries, methane production was inhibited at the low temperature ($15＾{circ}C$) . Our results demonstrate that contribution of acetate on methanogenesis increases at low temperature, but this pathway is inhibited by high concentration of acetate. Therefore acetate-utilizing methanogensis appears to be a key reaction at low temperature, and seems to be one of bottlenecks of the low temperature anaerobic degradation of organic matter in littoral sediments of the reservoir.