Bacterial communities on classroom surfaces vary with human contact.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Humans can spend the majority of their time indoors, but little is known about the interactions between the human and built-environment microbiomes or the forces that drive microbial community assembly in the built environment. We sampled 16S rRNA genes from four different surface types throughout a university classroom to determine whether bacterial assemblages on each surface were best predicted by routine human interactions or by proximity to other surfaces within the classroom. We then analyzed our data with publicly-available datasets representing potential source environments.

Results

Bacterial assemblages from the four surface types, as well as individual taxa, were indicative of different source pools related to the type of human contact each surface routi

SUBMITTER: Meadow JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3945812 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature