Unearthing the global patterns of cultural heritage microbiome for conservation

11 páginas.- 7 figuras.- referencias.- Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibiod.2024.105784

Cultural heritage worldwide is threatened by microbial biodeterioration. However, we know very little about the global biogeography, ecology, and driving forces of these microbiomes. Here, we provide the first global ecological perspective on the microbiomes of cultural heritage by meta-analyzing ∼1000 microbiomes from contrasting environmental conditions. The results show that the bacterial communities of cultural heritage are mainly influenced by global climate (especially by precipitation patterns), while those fungal communities, dominated by saprotrophs, are largely explained by local habitat conditions. Amongst, phototrophic bacteria (e.g., Alpha-proteobacteria, and Cyanobacteria) and some saprotrophic fungi (e.g., Sordariomycetes, and Dothideomycetes) construct the backbone of the cultural heritage microbiome. In this regard, the biodeterioration of cultural heritage could be pre-estimated and predicted by the ecological calculation on the big data of global environmental conditions and microbiome. In summary, the ecological perspective of the microbiomes on global cultural heritage can help to safeguard the long-term sustainable conservation for future generations. BiodeteriorationMicrobial ecologyBiogeographySpecies co-occurrence

in data analysis.

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42177297, 42377482, 42307164), and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Strategic Priority Research Program Grant XDA28010302. M.D-B. is supported by a project of the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) and the Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades of the Junta de Andalucía (FEDER Andalucía 2014–2020 Objetivo temático “01 - Refuerzo de la investigación, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación”) associated with the research project P20_00879 (ANDABIOMA). We would like to thank Professor Nick A. Cutler at Newcastle University for generously sharing microbiome data on sandstone buildings in Belfast, UK. He is then funded by EPSRC grant no. EP/G011338/1. We also thank Dr. Zhiying Guo at the Institute of Soil Science Chinese Academy of Sciences for his help

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