Animals and plants are metaorganisms and associate with microbes that affect their physiology, stress tolerance, and fitness. Here the hypothesis that alteration of the microbiome may constitute a fast‐response mechanism to environmental change is examined. This is supported by recent reciprocal transplant experiments with reef corals, which have shown that their microbiome adapts to thermally variable habitats and changes over time when transplanted into different environments. Further, inoculation of corals with beneficial bacteria increases their stress tolerance. But corals differ in their ability to flexibly associate with different bacteria. How scales of microbiome flexibility may reflect different metaorganism adaptation mechanisms is discussed and future directions for research are pinpointed. It is posited that microbiome flexibility is a broad phenomenon that contributes to the ability of organisms to respond to environmental change. Importantly, adapting with microbial help may provide an alternate route to organismal adaptation that facilitates rapid responses.

中文翻译：

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适应微生物帮助：微生物组的灵活性促进对环境变化的快速反应。

动物和植物是元有机体，与影响其生理、压力耐受性和健康的微生物有关。这里检验了微生物组的改变可能构成对环境变化的快速响应机制的假设。最近对珊瑚礁进行的相互移植实验证明了这一点，这些实验表明，它们的微生物群适应温度变化的栖息地，并在移植到不同环境中时会随着时间的推移而发生变化。此外，用有益细菌接种珊瑚会增加它们的压力耐受性。但是珊瑚灵活地与不同细菌结合的能力不同。讨论了微生物组灵活性的尺度如何反映不同的元生物适应机制，并确定了未来的研究方向。据推测，微生物组的灵活性是一种广泛的现象，有助于生物体对环境变化做出反应的能力。重要的是，在微生物的帮助下进行适应可能为促进快速反应的生物体适应提供另一种途径。