Characterization of Communal Sink Drain Communities of a University Campus

Microorganisms are widely distributed throughout the built environment and even those found in concealed environments such as sink p-traps can have an impact on our health. To date, most studies on sink bacterial communities focused on those present in hospitals, with no to little information regarding sinks in residential or communal settings. Here, we conducted a characterisation using 16S rRNA sequencing of the bacterial communities of communal restroom sinks located on a university campus to investigate the diversity, prevalence and abundances of the bacteria that reside in this understudied environment. The study found that community composition and structure were highly variable across individual sinks, and there were marginal differences between buildings and the two different parts of sink examined. Proteobacteria were the most abundant phylum in the sink communities, and the families Burkholderiaceae, Moraxellaceae and Sphingomonadaceae were found to be ubiquitous across all sinks. Notably, human skin was identified as a primary contributor to the below-strain sink bacterial community. These data provide novel insight into the sink bacterial communities' constituents and serve as the foundation for subsequent studies that might explore community stability and resilience of in situ sinks.