Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation IHBE Industry Consortium
The built environment is its own ecosystem, and architectural features in the indoor environment can change those ecosystems and the organisms living there. Bathrooms and kitchens can act as sources of water or natural resources, the availability of which affects microbial survival, and the spatial design of the building and flow of air and occupants can change how and which microorganisms are moved throughout the building. The amount of time humans use a space, or what they use it for can also alter the indoor microbiome. Sampling multiple locations within a single building allows us to get a higher-resolution picture of “who” can be found in a building and where, which can help us understand why.
