Your body is your own for only a short time; the elements from which it is made are only borrowed from the outside world, and you must give them back eventually. The entity that you recognise as you is a collective of ecosystems that many different types of microorganism call home. And although you might die – when your brain and circulatory systems have irrecoverably stopped working – the communities of bacteria and fungi, and even mites in your pores and worms in your gut (if you have any), will live on for some time.
