2021 ISB Virtual Microbiome Series

We are island ecosystems, rapidly colonized at birth by a diverse array of microorganisms. Many of these commensal microbial populations persist in and on our bodies for years, decades, perhaps as long as a century. For our microbes, these human timescales are equivalent to tens of thousands of generations, which in turn is equivalent to hundreds of thousands or even millions of years of evolution in a vertebrate — such as ourselves. While we are beginning to understand how disruptions to the ecological structure of commensal microbial communities can impact host health, less is known about how rapid evolutionary dynamics within individual commensal populations over the course of a host’s lifespan can influence ecosystem function.

ISB hosted a series of events in October of 2021 that highlight recent advances toward understanding general patterns of commensal population genomic variation within the human gut, how fine-scale commensal genomic variation is influenced by host phenotypic variation, and whether or not commensal genomic variation has an impact on human health and disease.