Our microbial selves: what ecology can teach us

Abstract

EMBo reports Vol 12 | no 8 | 2011 775 review review Advances in DNA sequencing have allowed us to characterize microbial communities-including those associated with the human body-at a broader range of spatial and temporal scales than ever before. We can now answer fundamental questions that were pre viously inaccessible and use well tested ecological theories to gain insight into changes in the microbiome that are associated with normal development and human disease. Perhaps un surprisingly, the ecosystems a…