Assignment:
Discussion: The Human Microbiome
"The Microbe Whisperers," Washington State Magazine, Winter 2017
The Evolution of Microbes and the Human Microbiome
In this week's Module you will learn about the evolution of microbes. Microbes have altered our environment in ways that have facilitated our survival by generating oxygen in photosynthesis and cooperating within eukaryotic cells as important organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts. As you learned at the beginning of the semester, our bodies are made up of cells that cooperate as tissues, and tissues that cooperate as organs, organs that cooperate as organ systems such as the circulatory, nervous, and immune systems. Microbes facilitate other important processes in the immune and digestive systems of our bodies as symbionts: some that are beneficial and some that can be harmful. Read the Human Microbiome Download Human Microbiomeand address the following questions in your initial post:
1. What did you learn about the Human Microbiome?
2. What surprised you and where in the document did you find the information?
3. How does our relationship with microbes reflect principles of evolution?