Synthetic microbial consortia

Synthetic microbial consortia or Synthetic microbial communities (commonly called SynComs) are multi-population systems that can contain a diverse range of microbial species, and are adjustable to serve a variety of industrial, ecological,^[1] and tautological^{[clarification needed]} interests. For synthetic biology, consortia take the ability to engineer novel cell behaviors to a population level.

Consortia are more common than not in nature, and generally prove to be more robust than monocultures.^[2] Just over 7,000 species of bacteria have been cultured and identified to date. Many of the estimated 1.2 million bacteria species that remain have yet to be cultured and identified, in part due to inabilities to be cultured axenically.^[3] Evidence for symbiosis between microbes strongly suggests it to have been a necessary precursor of the evolution of land plants and for their transition from algal communities in the sea to land.^[4] When designing synthetic consortia, or editing naturally occurring consortia, synthetic biologists keep track of pH, temperature, initial metabolic profiles, incubation times, growth rate, and other pertinent variables.^[2]