Highlights•Microbial transmission shapes microbiomes through social networks and co-
housing.•The colonization and persistence dynamics of microbiome members is …

Highlights•The microbiomes in many animal and plant hosts are diverse and
variable.•Within-host processes are dominated by host-microbe and among-microbe …

Transmission usually refers to the movement of pathogenic organisms. Yet, commensal
microbes that inhabit the human body also move between individuals and environments …

Early life microbial colonizers shape and support the immature vertebrate immune system.
Microbial colonization relies on the vertical route via parental provisioning and the horizontal …

Dispersal is simply defined as the movement of species across space and time. Despite this
terse definition, dispersal is an essential process with direct ecological and evolutionary …

Host‐associated microbial communities consist of stable and transient members that can
assemble through purely stochastic processes associated with the environment or by …

Background The question of which ecological and evolutionary processes structure the
distribution of biodiversity has intrigued scientists for centuries, and historically, inferences …

The human microbiome is a vast reservoir of microbial diversity and increasingly recognized
to have a fundamental role in human health. In polymicrobial communities, the presence of …

Humans constantly encounter new microbes, but few become long-term residents of the
adult gut microbiome. Classical theories predict that colonization is determined by the …

Microbiomes have highly important roles for ecosystem functioning and carry out key
functions that support planetary health, including nutrient cycling, climate regulation, and …