Microbiome

The totality of micro-organsims and their genomes present in a living animal. These micro-organisms maintain a relationship of commensalism with the living animal, where they play a very important role in digestion, protection against pathogens and more. Their populations form an ecosystem, which we know very little about at this point, and are now under study. These micro-organisms can be sequenced through metagenomics, which refers to the study of a complete ecosystem.