Pyrosequencing of Global House Dust

Fungi are ubiquitous components of indoor human environments, where most contact between humans and microbes occur. While there is little evidence to suggest that the majority of these taxa play anything but a neutral role, a minority are known to be detrimental to human lifestyles and health. Recently, culture-independent methods have demonstrated a much higher a-diversity of indoor fungi distinct from that of outdoor environments. Studies have demonstrated temporal fluctuations of fungal assemblages in human environments, and modest correlations with human activity, but the affects of global-scale patterns have not been examined, despite the manifest significance of biogeography in other microbial systems. Here we globally survey fungi from indoor environments (N=72) using both ITS and Ribosomal Large Subunit Markers.