A new study has been published that shows complex ecosystems exist in our urban buildings and they are unique to each different city.
The research has found that each city has its very own distinct microbial communities and it seems our offices are the hub for these microbiomes.
The researchers at Northern Arizona University Flagstaff conducted an investigation in San Diego and Toronto office spaces to discover what goes into the formation of microbes in nine chosen offices and were all selected for their different and varying climates.
Testing each office from floor to ceiling, they collected several samples over the course of a year and looked out for different environmental factors such as humidity and light variation.
What they found was that around 25 to 30 percent of the microbial samples were made up of human skin bacteria but also from outside, according to NPR. Bacterial migration from shoes and air ventilation systems are thought to be the culprits.
The most interesting result was that, although each office from each individual city had similar amounts of bacteria, once compared to offices from different cities, these varied greatly. It seems each city has its own unique ecosystem of microbiomes. Assistant professor Gregory Caporaso who lead the study says the results showed that the geographical location of the city played an important part in the composition of these bacterial ecosystems.
“This was especially interesting because even within each city, the offices we studied differed from each other in terms of size, usage patterns and ventilation systems suggesting that geography is more important than any of these features in driving the bacterial community composition of the offices within the ranges that we studied.”
The research team are hoping that the findings will help to design offices and other frequently used spaces to have more healthy microbial ecosystems that compliment the outside environment.
The study has been published in the journal mSystems.