Gut flora or, more appropriately,
gut microbiota, consists of a complex community of
microorganisms that live in the
digestive tracts of animals. The gut microbiota comprises the largest and most diverse reservoir of mutualistic microorganisms associated with animals. In this context
gut is synonymous with
intestinal, and
flora with
microbiota and
microflora. An associated term, sometimes used interchangeably with gut microbiota, is gut
microbiome, which refers to the aggregate of all the
genomes of gut microbiota.