Associate Professor Breed says, “The project aimed to find out what microbes we are exposed to in urban green spaces – areas like sports fields and nature parks – and whether this exposure was different for children and adults, based on their proximity to the ground.”
“The Seed Funding allowed us to follow our curiosity, and to take greater risks in our research that tend to not be supported by major funding schemes, but can lead to more innovative outcomes.”
The $10,000 grant was instrumental in helping Associate Professor Breed and his research team conduct the study through the purchase of equipment for sampling microbes, the cost of conducting DNA sequencing, plus the field and laboratory experiments.
“If you count all of our cells, we’re about 43 percent human because the other 57 percent is microbial – made up of the tiny microorganisms that live on our skin and inside our bodies,” says Associate Professor Breed.
“Microbial species play an essential role in training and developing our immune system, so those who don’t have high exposure to microbes tend to have higher rates of non-communicable and chronic inflammatory diseases, such as autoimmunity and allergies.”
“Soil is arguably the richest source of microbes, so being connected to the earth and understanding more about our environment is fundamental to the development of our immune system.”
As the most commonly used urban green space, sports fields were the focus of the study, which tested the impact of vegetation complexity and diversity on the combined population of air and soil microbes in the environment.
To understand whether children and adults are exposed differently to these microbes, due to their distance from the ground, they also measured how much microbial exchange occurs between the soil and the surrounding air, and whether the microbial composition changes at different elevations from ground level.
The answers surprised them.
“The closer to the ground we investigated, the more similar the airborne microbial population was to the soil, so small children playing closer to ground level are getting exposure to greater microbial diversity than adults.”
They also compared the results with microbes in Belair National Park, which has a greater diversity of plant species compared to urban sports fields – discovering that this complexity of vegetation significantly increased the diversity of microbiomes people are exposed to.
“Therefore, we should not only be thinking about regularly visiting biodiverse green spaces, but also participating in activities that get us closer to the ground and its rich microbial diversity that benefits our immune system,” says Associate Professor Breed.
“And if we shape the microbial communities on sports fields by planting a range of species, we will have an even greater opportunity to improve our health and wellbeing.”
Throughout the study, Associate Professor Breed and his team worked with a range of councils and government agencies including SA Health, Green Adelaide landscape board, and the Department for Environment and Water. Sharing the study’s results has influenced the Healthy Parks Healthy People SA framework developed by the SA Government.
“The framework is connected with a larger ambition for Adelaide to increase its biodiversity, recreation and interaction with nature, to become the world’s second National Park City after Greater London, where almost fifty percent of green cover makes this metropolis one of the world’s most vegetated cities,” says Associate Professor Breed.
“In understanding the benefits of exposure to microbes in soil and the role of plant diversity in our health and wellbeing, the value we can place on green spaces becomes much, much greater.”
“It’s just one way that we can improve our health and the environment, plus save money by reducing public health spending.”
