Pets can’t go unnoticed either.
By Raif Karerat
A new study released in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B says dust samples from any given household can indicate not just the geographical location of your residence, but also the proportion of male and female members in the house, while also revealing whether you have a pet.
“Every day, we are surrounded by a vast array of organisms in our homes, most of which we cannot see,” said co-author of the study Noah Fierer, associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the US. “We live in a microbial zoo, and this study was an attempt to catalog that diversity,” Fierer continued.
The study examined about 1,200 homes across the United States and found that on average, each contains more than 5,000 different species of bacteria and around 2,000 species of fungi.
“House dust is an unappealing muesli of skin flakes, food crumbs, soil particles, fabric fibres, animal fur, decomposing insects and their feces. Living in and on the mixture are microbes that vary with climate, geography, local plant and animal populations, and the house occupants themselves,” explained The Guardian.
Geography is the best predictor of fungi in one’s home, Fierer noted.
However, when it comes to bacteria, your living mates may be more important than your geographical location.
The dust samples enabled researchers to confidently predict which homes had pets such as cats or dogs and, to a lesser extent, the gender ratio of the residents.
“The pet effect on bacterial communities is in part caused by these pets directly shedding these bacterial taxa from their bodies into our home environment,†the scientists wrote.
From the bacteria found in house dust alone, they could predict whether a dog lived at the home with 92 percent accuracy, and a cat with 83 percent accuracy.