High-mountain lakes are among the most sensitive freshwater ecosystems to climate variability, making them valuable indicators of long-term environmental change. Recent advances in sedimentary ancient DNA (sedDNA) have enabled the reconstruction of microbial community histories spanning centuries, offering critical insight into how environmental pressures shape bacterial and archaeal assemblages. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the multi-century dynamics of prokaryotic communities in high-elevation lakes, focusing on the interactions between climatic trends, organic-matter inputs, atmospheric deposition, and microbial diversity. Evidence from sedDNA-based studies reveals that recent decades have experienced accelerated restructuring of microbial communities, characterized by increased abundance, higher alpha diversity, and pronounced shifts in community composition. These changes are largely linked to warming, declining precipitation, enhanced inputs of dissolved organic carbon, and intensified long-range atmospheric dust deposition. The emergence of taxa associated with higher nutrient availability such as cyanobacteria and metabolically versatile archaea further indicates a transition toward more productive conditions. Collectively, these findings highlight the central role of climate-driven processes in regulating microbial ecosystems in high-mountain lakes and underscore the importance of long-term monitoring to anticipate future ecological responses.
Monfared et al. (Sat,) studied this question.