“…Thus, variations in bacterial community (BC) composition should reflect the effects of stable, lake‐specific characteristics as well as the effects of factors that fluctuate according to seasonal cycles (Yannarell et al., ). Most studies are short term (<1 year) with BC composition showing a distinct seasonal pattern (e.g., Eiler, Heinrich, & Bertilsson, ; Morrison et al., ; Woodhouse et al., ). However in multiyear studies, BC composition displays a huge temporal variability showing repetitive seasonal patterns (Kent et al., ; Nelson, ; Shade et al., ) with high bacterial abundance in summer and low abundance in winter (Nelson, ; Rösel, Allgaier, & Grossart, ), high interannual variability (Linz et al., ), absence of any seasonality (Berdjeb et al., ; Jones, Cadkin, Newton, & McMahon, ) or shifts indicating ecosystem transitions depending on the year under scrutiny (Thaler, Vincent, Lionard, Hamilton, & Lovejoy, ).…”