Microbiomes of the built environment

Microbiomes of the built environment is a field of inquiry into the communities of microorganisms that live in human constructed environments like houses, cars and water pipes. It is also sometimes referred to as microbiology of the built environment.

A 2016 paper by Brent Stephens highlights some of the key findings of studies of "microbiomes of the indoor environment". These key findings include those listed below:

The microbiomes of the built environment are being studied for multiple reasons including how they may impact the health of humans and other organisms occupying the built environment but also some non health reasons such as diagnostics of building properties, for forensic application, impact on food production, impact on built environment function, and more.

Extensive research has been conducted on individual microbes found in the built environment. More recently there has been a significant expansion in the number of studies that are examining the communities of microbes found in the built environment. Such studies have covered a range of environments.

Overall the many studies that have been conducted on the microbiomes of the built environment have started to identify some general patterns regarding the microbes are found in various places. Different areas and kinds of buildings are linked to different sorts of microbiota. Pakpour et al. in 2016 reviewed the patterns relating to the presence of archaea in indoor environments (based on analysis of rRNA gene sequence data).

Many studies have documented possible human health implications of the microbiomes of the built environment.

A major component of studies of microbiomes of the built environment involves determining how components of the built environment impact these microbes and microbial communities. Factors that are thought to be important include humidity, pH, chemical exposures, temperature, filtration, surface materials, and air flow. There has been an effort to develop standards for what built environment "metadata" to collect associated with studies of the microbial communities in the built environment. A 2014 paper reviews the tools that are available to improve the built environment data that is collected associated with such studies. Data covered in this review include building characteristics and environmental conditions, HVAC system characteristics and ventilation rates, human occupancy and activity measurements, surface characterizations and air sampling and aerosol dynamics.

Just as the built environment has an impact on the microbiomes found therein, the microbial communities of the built environment can impact the built environment itself. Examples include degradation of building materials, altering fluid and airflow, generating volatiles, and more.^{[citation needed]}