Evolution of the indoor biome

NESCent Working Group on the Evolutionary Biology of the Built Environment; Laura J Martin; Rachel I Adams; Ashley Bateman; Holly M Bik; John Hawks; Sarah M Hird; David Hughes; Steven W Kembel; Kerry Kinney; Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis; Gabriel Levy; Craig McClain; James F Meadow; Raul F Medina; Gwynne Mhuireach; Corrie S Moreau; Jason Munshi-South; Lauren M Nichols; Clare Palmer; Laura Popova; Coby Schal; Martin Täubel; Michelle Trautwein; Juan A Ugalde; Robert R Dunn

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2015.02.001

Evolution of the indoor biome

Trends Ecol Evol. 2015 Apr;30(4):223-32. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2015.02.001. Epub 2015 Mar 11.

Authors

NESCent Working Group on the Evolutionary Biology of the Built Environment; Laura J Martin¹, Rachel I Adams², Ashley Bateman³, Holly M Bik⁴, John Hawks⁵, Sarah M Hird⁴, David Hughes⁶, Steven W Kembel⁷, Kerry Kinney⁸, Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis⁹, Gabriel Levy¹⁰, Craig McClain¹¹, James F Meadow¹², Raul F Medina¹³, Gwynne Mhuireach¹⁴, Corrie S Moreau¹⁵, Jason Munshi-South¹⁶, Lauren M Nichols¹⁷, Clare Palmer¹⁸, Laura Popova¹⁹, Coby Schal²⁰, Martin Täubel²¹, Michelle Trautwein²², Juan A Ugalde²³, Robert R Dunn²⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. Electronic address: LJM222@cornell.edu.
² Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
³ Department of Biology, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
⁴ UC Davis Genome Center, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
⁵ Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
⁶ Department of Entomology, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
⁷ Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC H3C 3P8, Canada.
⁸ Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
⁹ Department of Biological Sciences, Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway.
¹¹ National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, Durham, NC, 27705, USA.
¹² Biology and the Built Environment Center, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
¹³ Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Architecture, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Science and Education, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL 60605, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Biological Sciences, Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458, USA; Louis Calder Center-Biological Field Station, Fordham University, Armonk, NY 10504, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA.
¹⁸ Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
¹⁹ Barrett Honors College, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
²⁰ Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA; Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA.
²¹ National Institute for Health and Welfare, Department of Health Protection, 70210 Kuopio, Finland.
²² California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA.
²³ Centro de Genómica y Bioinformática, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile.
²⁴ Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark.

PMID: 25770744
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2015.02.001

Abstract

Few biologists have studied the evolutionary processes at work in indoor environments. Yet indoor environments comprise approximately 0.5% of ice-free land area--an area as large as the subtropical coniferous forest biome. Here we review the emerging subfield of 'indoor biome' studies. After defining the indoor biome and tracing its deep history, we discuss some of its evolutionary dimensions. We restrict our examples to the species found in human houses--a subset of the environments constituting the indoor biome--and offer preliminary hypotheses to advance the study of indoor evolution. Studies of the indoor biome are situated at the intersection of evolutionary ecology, anthropology, architecture, and human ecology and are well suited for citizen science projects, public outreach, and large-scale international collaborations.

Keywords: anthrome; built environment; microbiome; phylogeography; urban ecology.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Review

MeSH terms

Animals
Biological Evolution*
Ecosystem*
Housing
Humans
Microbiota / physiology
Plant Physiological Phenomena