Microbes play major roles in diverse biogeochemical (C, N, P, S) pathways of deep reservoirs and shallow lake ecosystems. These water bodies host distinct water, sediment and surface-associated microbial communities and their populations may be largely driven by changes in the nutritional status of the water bodies due to variations in the hydrological regime (e.g., thermal stratification and water level) and climate change.

This Research Topic seeks to address recent advances and challenges in the microbial ecology of reservoirs and lakes. We seek contributions from authors that include, but are not limited to, the following areas: (1) Relationship between water quality parameters and microbial community composition; (2) Functional microbial communities (e.g., cable bacteria, aerobic denitrifying bacteria, and anammox) in water and sediments; (3) Effects of hydrological regime (e.g., thermal stratification, rainstorm, water level) on dynamics of microbial communities; (4) Algal blooms and their interactions with other microbial communities; (5) Modelling of ecosystems-based water quality data and microbial community composition using macrogenome sequencing.

The Topic Editors welcome the submission of all article types accepted in Frontiers in Microbiology, including original research articles, reviews, protocols and methods.

Keywords: Microbial community, reservoirs, lakes, sediment, Cable bacteria, thermal stratification, algal bloom

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.