Recently I was doing field work in southern Africa and marveling at the enormous termite mounds that dot the landscape. Composed of soil, saliva and poop, termite mounds are amongst the most spectacular of the structures built by animals. These fascinating structures maintain the ventilation of termite nests that are actually subterranean. This PBS blog post …
We are organizing a workshop to catalyze the study of the microbiology of built environments where animals live. The workshop is scheduled for October 7th and 8th at UC Davis. Our aim is to bring together experts in animal health, building science and microbiology to discuss why these systems are worthy of study and how research in this …
In Dirty Dog: Do Pets Track Bacteria in Your Home? on the Popular Science blog, science journalist Brooke Borel describes her recent experience contributing to the citizen science experiment called The Wild Life of Our Homes run by Rob Dunn and Holly Menninger at North Carolina State University. Here she presents a beautiful graphic depicting how the samples that …
Much of the work on microbiology of the built environment focuses attention on issues relating to humans. But all those other animals that spend time in built environments are important parts of the bigger picture. Animals certainly influence what microbes are found in the built environment. And they are important customers of knowledge about the …