Biodiversity and concentrations of airborne fungi in large US office buildings from the BASE study

Abstract

The Building Assessment Survey and Evaluation (BASE) study measured baseline concentrations of airborne fungi in 100 representative US office buildings in 1994–1998. Multiple samples for different sampling durations, sites, and times of the day were aggregated into building-wide indoor and outdoor average concentrations. Fungal concentrations were compared between locations (indoor vs. outdoor), sampling and analytical methods (culture vs. microscopy), and season (summer vs. winter). The arithmetic means (standard deviations) of the indoor/outdoor concentrations of culturable fungi and fungal spores were 100/680 (230/840) CFU m - 3 and 270/6540 (1190/6780) spore m - 3 , respectively. Although fewer groups were observed indoors than outdoors, at lower average concentrations (except in two buildings), site-specific and building-wide indoor measurements had higher coefficients of variation. More groups were seen in summer, and aggregated concentrations tended to be higher than in winter except for culturable Aureobasidium spp. and Botrytis spp. outdoors and non-sporulating fungi in both locations. Rankings of the predominant fungi identified by both methods were similar, but overall indoor and outdoor spore concentrations were approximately 3 and 10 times higher, respectively, than concentrations of culturable fungi. In the 44 buildings with both measurements, the indoor and outdoor total culturable fungi to fungal spore ratios (total C / S ratios) were 1.27 and 0.25, with opposite seasonal patterns. The indoor C / S ratio was higher in summer than in winter (1.47 vs. 0.86; N = 29 and 15, respectively), but the outdoor ratio was lower in summer (0.19 vs. 0.36, respectively). Comparison of the number of different fungal groups and individual occurrence in buildings and samples indicated that the outdoor environment and summer season were more diverse, but the proportional contributions of the groups were very similar suggesting that the indoor and outdoor environments were related as were summer and winter seasons for each location. The extreme (e.g., 90th percentile) indoor concentrations ( 200 CFU m - 3 and 210 spore m - 3 ) may provide reference values for non-complaint US office environments.