In This Issue 18.3

Excerpt

In 1950, only a third of the global human population lived in cities. By 2030, over two-thirds of the human population is expected to be urban and exposed to different social, physical, and microbial environments, which contrast with the ecosystems in which humans evolved. Short- and long-term impacts of this local environmental change on human health are not well understood. Increased urbanization has been concurrent with a global increase in several diseases, particularly allergies and asthma and associated with altered microbial exposure. However, very little is known about how cities and urban-associated land use change impact microbial communities. Breed et al. present a strong argument for improving public health and ecological restoration in urban environments. Fungi are one of the key components of urban environments, can be negatively impacted by altered land-use and land-management, and are implicated in allergy, asthma, and chronic inflammatory conditions. Marczylo et al. sequenced fungal DNA within soils from five urban greenspaces, identifying differences in specific fungal taxa of relevance to environmental and public health. Mhuireach et al. collected air samples from high-versus low-diversity urban greenspaces to assess whether variations in aerobiome diversity or composition were associated with vegetation type or species diversity. Their results indicated that vegetation type and diversity were both important factors, but individual site location explained the largest portion of aerobiome variation. Results including these studies published in this issue will help improve urban planning in protecting and promoting the health of the urban environment and its residents. …