
Your Body is an Ecosystem: Why Microbiomes Matter
Though invisible to the naked eye, rich worlds of microbes are contained in our bodies. Our gut, skin, mouth, and most of our body is home to unique communities of microbes including viruses, protists, bacteria, archaea, and fungi. These communities are also known as the microbiome. It is estimated [1] that approximately half of the cells in our body come from our microbiome! The colonization of microbes within our body begins at birth, when we are inundated by our mother’s s