Microbial sampling tubes from the Bicocca Sampling Day. Credit: Giulia Ghisleni and Antonia Bruno
An innovative citizen science project is combining large-scale microbe sampling with metagenomics workshops to create a “living lab” on a college campus.
On the University of Milano-Bicocca’s campus, students and researchers collected thousands of environmental samples across campus green spaces, as well as evidence from human microbiomes through skin and stool samples.
The research team developed and delivered a hands-on metagenomics workshop that provided the students with opportunities to process their collected microbiome samples through the Fantastic Microbes and Where to Find Them crowdfunding initiative. Participants learned how DNA sequencing data is processed and interpreted to identify microbial communities using the KBase platform.
In their project, the researchers found that indoor locations were enriched in human-associated microbial species, whereas outdoor sites displayed higher diversity and distinct ecological signatures. They also found differences between sampling periods, which highlights the strong influence of environment and season on microbial composition.
“Overall, the results reveal a complex network of microbial exchange across urban ecosystems,” said Antonia Bruno, researchers and professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Milan, Italy. “The students both shape and are shaped by the microbiomes around them.”
This is far from the end of the project, and the team are continuously looking at new ways to advance the bioinformatics and metagenomics analysis, integrate their findings into urban planning strategies and to extend the “living lab” model—including the potential launch of a similar project taking place at the University of California, Berkeley.
Data from Society for Experimental Biology