A microbiota is "the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space". Joshua Lederberg coined the term, emphasising the importance of microorganisms inhabiting the human body in health and disease. Many scientific articles distinguish microbiome and microbiota to describe either the collective genomes of the microorganisms that reside in an environmental niche or the microorganisms themselves, respectively. However, by the original definitions these terms are largely synonymous.