ecological community multi-species collection of microbes microbial community A class for a collection of organisms considered "microbial" and an accompanying quality in PATO (e.g. "microscopic") would be useful to better axiomatise this class. See https://github.com/PopulationAndCommunityOntology/pco/issues/22 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4366-3088 The definition of a microbial species is deeply debated, however, units of phylogenetic and functional diversity are recognised with respect to their varying roles in an ecosystem. In turn, there exist multiple operational definitions of microbial community, such as local, phenomenological, and indexical communities. This class seeks to capture microbial communities in a very broad sense, as collections of phylogenetically and functionally divergent microbial organisms co-existing, potentially interacting, and competing for niche space in the same ecosystem over a period of time in which their causal footprints overlap one another. An ecological community which is composed of co-existing populations of microbial organisms that interact, directly or indirectly, such that they impact one another's ecological fitness. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2009.88 microbiota