SUPERORGANISMS. “Of course, a human is in many ways more complex an organism than a single E. coli cell, and to understand the former is, by far, the more daunting task. However, perhaps this comparison is not the right one. Shapiro has long held that it is the microbial colony and not the solitary cell on which biologists should focus their attention.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full