Deep freshwater lakes exhibit distinct microbial community stratification across depth gradients, which plays important roles in biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem stability. As crucial regulators of microbiome composition and function, viruses may play key ecological roles in these stratified systems, yet their distribution patterns and ecological significance in deep‐lake surface sediments remain poorly understood. Here, w...

Microbial trait variation along environmental gradients is crucial to understanding their ecological adaptation mechanisms. With the increasing availability of microbial genomes, making full use of the genome‐based traits to decipher their adaptation strategies becomes promising and urgent. Here, we examined microbial communities in water and sediments of 20 East African lakes with pH values ranging from 7.2 to 10.1 through ta...