 Philosophy of microbes and microbiology goes beyond both its organismal and scientific bases. As discussed above, whether microbes are used as models or as sources of data about biogeochemistry, their implications go much further. They constitute many of the material aspects of human lives, from individual bodies to every process in the biosphere. Although there are many ways in which general lessons are taken from large organisms, broad swathes of biology depend on microbes in numerous ways, and this influences how researchers understand and theorize about organisms such as humans. For philosophers of biology interested primarily in human or other animal biology, there will always be some sort of philosophical payoff if microbiological angles are included.  Philosophers of science more generally may find that understanding models or experimentation carried out with living systems can be enhanced by attention to microbial modelling practices.