If you want to have a flourishing and diverse microbiome (PRO), you’re going to need to feed the inhabitants you want the resources that they want (PRE) and give them appropriate shelter and a community that embraces them (TERRAIN). In some cases, you may want your transient and colonizing immigrant microbial friends to bring some food for the trip (SYN). That way they can directly support the social economy of your gut with their interactions with other bugs (both bad and good) and indirectly with their metabolic contribution (POST) to the superorganism that you are without having to worry about where they're going to get their next meal.

Check out this week's episode where we talk about the before, during, and after of probiotics.