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The climate change, observed at the scale of the planet, appears as one of the main threats to lakes. Locally, at the scale of a lake, climate change results in important changes in atmospheric conditions (including temperatures increase, heatwaves, storms, etc…) that may strongly impact lake physics such as water temperature and thermal stratification. Because strength and phenology of thermal stratification are main drivers of planktonic communities, climate changes have profound impacts on the dynamics, abundance and taxonomic composition of these communities. In addition, climate-induced changes in thermal conditions of lakes have strong impacts on higher trophic levels communities such as fishes. Such impacts on fish communities are either direct (e.g. because of shrinkage of appropriate thermal habitats) or are mediated through trophic interactions between fish and plankton communities. Consequently, climate-induced changes in pelagic communities (plankton, fishes) may result in severe implications in terms of local economy, human health and food security. Accordingly, there is a compelling need to quantify the impact of climate change on lake ecosystems and better understand the linkages between climate changes forcing on lake conditions and the resultant responses of pelagic communities. We address these topics through lake modeling and the analysis of long-term datasets from alpine lakes and other ecosystems across the globe. The coupling between lake-specific studies and comparative approaches is essential to better quantify the impact of climate changes at the scale of the Hearth and better understand changes that occur at the scale of a lake and its watershed.