Mike and Ike swabbed the surface of their lab bench to see what bacteria were present. They transferred the swab contents to the medium in a Petri dish and incubated the dish for several days. When they removed the Petri dish from the incubator, the medium was covered with several colonies of bacteria. Mike and Ike were looking at which ordered list in the hierarchy of life?

ok from smallest to largest it's:

atom - > molecule - > macromolecule - > organelle - > cell - > tissue - > organ - > system - > organism - > population - > community - > ecosystem - > biosphere

I think a population involves only a single species.

But it looks like the Petri dish has several species of bacteria.

So I would say it's 1 level higher and that the answer is community.