What is the difference between microbiota and microbiome?

[Mahi Bashat]

What is the difference between microbiota and microbiome?

Are they the same?

[Fazil Hussein]

Here is the answer from Bard:

Microbiota and microbiome are two terms that are often used interchangeably, but they have slightly different meanings.

Microbiota refers to the community of microorganisms that live in a particular environment. These microorganisms can include bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses, and protozoa. The microbiota of a particular environment is unique and is shaped by a variety of factors, including the environment itself, the host organism (if there is one), and the host’s diet.

Microbiome refers to the collective genomes of the microorganisms in a particular environment. This includes the genes of all the bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses, and protozoa in the environment. The microbiome is a complex system that is constantly changing in response to changes in the environment.

In other words, the microbiota is the community of microorganisms that live in a particular environment, while the microbiome is the genetic material of those microorganisms.

Here is a table that summarizes the key differences between microbiota and microbiome:

Feature	Microbiota	Microbiome
Definition	The community of microorganisms that live in a particular environment	The collective genomes of the microorganisms in a particular environment
What it includes	Bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses, protozoa	Genes of bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses, protozoa
How it changes	Changes in response to changes in the environment	Changes in response to changes in the environment

I hope this helps!

[Hamdy Ahmad]

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary,

microbiome:

1- a community of microorganisms (such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses) that inhabit a particular environment and especially the collection of microorganisms living in or on the human body.

2- the collective genomes of microorganisms inhabiting a particular environment and especially the human body.

microbiota:

1- the microscopic organisms of a particular environment.

2- MICROBIOME sense 1

 

 

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