Before revision:  Our paradigm frames the ecological state  in terms of the presence or absence of an individual microbial taxonomic unit as a function of both the ecological states of its neighboring units and, departing from standard graphical model representations, the associations among the units within its neighborhood.
After revision:  Our paradigm frames the ecological state in terms of the presence or absence of individual microbial ecological units that are identified by amplicon sequence variants (ASV) in the gut microenvironment, as a function of both the ecological states of its neighboring units and, departing from standard graphical model representations, the associations among the units within its neighborhood.