© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Microbiome 2 (2014): 14, doi:10.1186/2049-2618-2-14. ; Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by mutations in the CFTR gene that predispose the airway to infection. Chronic infection by pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa leads to inflammation that gradually degrades lung function, resulting in morbidity and early mortality. In a previous study of CF monozygotic twins, we demonstrate that genetic modifiers significantly affect the establishment of persistent P. aeruginosa colonization in CF. Recognizing that bacteria other than P. aeruginosa contribute to the CF microbiome and associated pathology, we used deep sequencing of sputum from pediatric monozygotic twins and nontwin siblings with CF to characterize pediatric bacterial communities and the role that genetics plays in their evolution. We found that the microbial communities in sputum from pediatric patients living together were much more alike than those from pediatric individuals living apart, regardless of whether samples were taken from monozygous twins or from nontwin CF siblings living together, which we used as a proxy for dizygous twins. In contrast, adult communities were comparatively monolithic and much less diverse than the microbiome of pediatric patients. Taken together, these data and other recent studies suggest that as patients age, the CF microbiome becomes less diverse, more refractory to treatment and dominated by mucoid P. aeruginosa, as well as being associated with accelerated pulmonary decline. Our studies show that the microbiome of pediatric patients is susceptible to environmental influences, suggesting that interventions to preserve the community structure found in young CF patients might be possible, perhaps slowing disease progression. ; This work was supported by the Flatley Foundation of Boston (to GAO, BAS and AHG), National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants P20 GM103413-10 and R01 HL074175-09 (to BAS), a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Research Development Program grant (STANTO07R0), Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Research Development Program grant R025-CR07 (to DMG), NIH grants R01 HL068927-09 and R01 DK44003 (to GRC), Cystic Fibrosis Foundation grant CUTTIN06P0 (to GRC), NIH grant R01 AI091699 (to GAO) and NIH grant 4UH3DK083993 (to MLS).