Ecological stability of microbial communities in Lake Donghu regulated by keystone taxa

[Display omitted] •Microbial networks were distinctly different among seasons.•Networks with higher complexity and more keystone taxa exhibited higher stability.•Water temperature and pH influenced microbial networks and community stability.•Keystone taxa could be regarded as the indicators of community stability. Seasonal variations of environmental factors generally result in considerable changes in microbiomes, yet we still lack a clear understanding of how microbial communities maintain their ecological stability. Here, we analyze a long-term (nine years) high-throughput sequencing dataset by network analysis to illustrate how the microbial stability varies among seasons in lake ecosystems. The results showed that the microbial networks were distinctly different among seasons, and the most complex network in autumn exhibited the highest stability. We found that the strong connecting structures among microbes (large modules) were significantly (P