Ecological succession of the microbial communities of an air-conditioning cooling coil in the tropics.
Air-conditioning systems harbor microorganisms, potentially spreading them to indoor environments. While air and surfaces in air-conditioning systems are periodically sampled as potential sources of indoor microbes, little is known about the dynamics of cooling coil-associated communities and their effect on the downstream airflow. Here, we conducted a 4-week time series sampling to characterize the succession of an air-conditioning duct and cooling coil after cleaning. Using an universal primer pair targeting hypervariable regions of the 16S/18S ribosomal RNA, we observed a community succession for the condensed water, with the most abundant airborne taxon Agaricomycetes fungi dominating the initial phase and Sphingomonas bacteria becoming the most prevalent taxa toward the end of the experiment. Duplicate air samples collected upstream and downstream of the coil suggest that the system does not act as ecological filter or source/sink for specific microbial taxa during the duration of the experiment.
Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Acerbi
Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Chénard
Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Miller
Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Gaultier
Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Heinle
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Chang
Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Uchida
Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Drautz-Moses
Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Schuster
Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.|Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
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Lauro
D000389:Air Conditioning / Q000295:instrumentation*; D000391:Air Microbiology; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000032:analysis*; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods; D005658:Fungi / Q000254:growth & development; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000032:analysis; D020578:Sphingomonas / Q000254:growth & development; D014329:Tropical Climate
D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
16S; Airborne; Bacteria; Cooling coil-associated microbial communities; Fungi; HVAC systems