Global changes such as seawater intrusion and freshwater resource salinization increase environmental stress imposed on the aquatic microbiome. A strong predictive understanding of the responses of the aquatic microbiome to environmental stress will help in coping with the “gray rhino” events in the environment, thereby contributing to an ecologically sustainable future. Considering that microbial ecological networks are tied to the stability of ecosystem functioning and that abundant and rare biospheres with different biogeographic patterns are important drivers of ecosystem functioning, the roles of abundant and rare biospheres in maintaining ecological networks need to be clarified. Here we showed that, with the increasing salinity stress induced by the freshwater‐to‐seawater transition, the microbial diversity reduced significantly and the taxonomic structure experienced a strong succession. The complexity and stability of microbial ecological networks were diminished by the increasing stress. The composition of the microorganisms supporting the networks underwent sharp turnovers during the freshwater‐to‐seawater transition, with the abundant biosphere behaving more robustly than the rare biosphere. Notably, the abundant biosphere played a much more important role than the rare biosphere in stabilizing ecological networks under low‐stress environments, but the difference between their relative importance narrowed significantly with the increasing stress, suggesting that the environmental stress weakened the “Matthew effect” in the microbial world. With in‐depth insights into the aquatic microbial ecology under stress, our findings highlight the importance of adjusting conservation strategies for the abundant and rare biospheres to maintain ecosystem functions and services in response to rising environmental stress.

A peer-reviewed open access journal published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences