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Microbial Ecology of Indoor Environments: The Ecological and Applied Aspects of Microbial Contamination in Archives, Libraries and Conservation Environments

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Sick Building Syndrome

Abstract

Filamentous fungi can colonise a wide range of organic and inorganic materials and play an important role in biodeterioration processes. They are able to tolerate desiccation, high mineral salt concentrations and the heavy metal compounds that are often present in inks and pigments, substances which are therefore frequently found on paper supported heritage and in the dust present in closed spaces. The fungal and bacterial communities that can develop on a book are similar to the communities of decomposers which, in natural environments, transform nutrients bound to lifeless organic matter into low molecular or inorganic forms, thereby making them available to plants. The development and sustained presence of a fungal community on a shelf in a library or on an individual book depends on the type of spore that reaches the host material’s surface, the particular microenvironment (temperature, relative humidity, light), the substrate’s water activity, and the casual events which promote the colonisation of materials (insect-borne dispersion, human contamination, external sources of fungal diversity). An entire library or a single book can be compared to a tract of virgin land reached by colonising organisms which then behave like a pioneering species on fresh soil. According to Wardle (2002) species’ identity and the composition of decomposers exert a far greater impact on ecosystem processes than species richness per se. When considering paper stored in a closed environment, its colonisation and biodegradation depends on species identity and composition since only cellulolytic organisms can exploit the bulk of the substrate (Pinzari et al. 2006). As in natural environments, the diversity-function relationship is driven by the presence or absence of key species, by niche differentiation, and by species interaction. Resource partitioning or facilitative (or obstructive) interactions between species affect the substrate exploitation process in natural environments as well as in artificial ones. The study of the mechanisms underlying the microbiological attack of ancient materials has been widely practiced and still represents one of the main focuses of interest in institutions and laboratories which are concerned with cultural heritage conservation. In this chapter the ecological and practical aspects of microbial contamination in archives, libraries and indoor storage environments are described and discussed.

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Mark Livesey for the language revision of the text, and to Dr. Mariasanta Montanari for her advice and suggestions.

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  1. Istituto Centrale per il Restauro e la Conservazione del Patrimonio Archivistico e Librario Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, 00184, Rome, Italy

    Flavia Pinzari

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    Sabah A. Abdul-Wahab

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Pinzari, F. (2011). Microbial Ecology of Indoor Environments: The Ecological and Applied Aspects of Microbial Contamination in Archives, Libraries and Conservation Environments. In: Abdul-Wahab, S. (eds) Sick Building Syndrome. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17919-8_9

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