Surface material and location impact microbial communities colonizing plastic and wood surfaces during the HI-SEAS IV Mission

Abstract

Microbial communities that colonize surfaces have the ability to influence human health and can cause infection and illness. This is an important factor in long-term space travel due to the confined nature of the environment and the frequent interaction between the microbiomes of the crew and surfaces. The Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation IV study examined the microbial dynamics of crew skin and surfaces on earth that mimicked the isolated and confined environment of Mars and Moon exploration missions. Fluctuations in microbial diversity were found for abiotic surfaces, but the role of surface material and location on microbial community composition had yet to be examined. In our study, we examined how microbial communities changed in relation to surface material and location and found that microbial communities on plastic and wood surfaces showed significant dissimilarities based on beta diversity analysis. From taxonomic barchart analyses, we found that microbial communities on plastic and wood surfaces had different taxonomic compositions based on surface type and location. Lastly, through assessment of differential abundance analysis at the genus level, we were able to find more differentially abundant taxa on plastic compared to wood. Our study showed that surface material and location did impact microbial community composition and could provide insight when designing environments for future space exploration missions.