What do airplanes, yurts, office buildings, and the space station all have in common?
They all represent the “built environment”… man-made structures where people spend the vast majority of their time. Each individual built environment is unique in that it possesses its own complex microbial ecosystem. In fact, thousands of species of microbes inhabit these spaces, yet we only have a rudimentary understanding of their composition, diversity, and interactions. Consider that even though people spend more than 90 percent of their lives indoors we know more about the microbial ecology of the digestive system of mice than we do about the built environment.
Thanks to continuing advances in DNA sequencing technology, and a recent initiative by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, this gap in knowledge is beginning to be addressed. The effort to better understand the built environment has implications for everything from engineering and architecture to biodefense and forensics, and even the concept of probiotics for buildings.
microBEnet is the online destination for resources related to the microbiology of the built environment.
Want to learn more? Check out our “Simple Guides” on topics such as microbial ecology and ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequencing.
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