Patterns of medical-interest biodiversity in a tropical megacity

• Grant number: 25/00431-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: May 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Theoretical Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Raul Costa Pereira
• Grantee: Gedimar Pereira Barbosa
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 20/11953-2 - Echoes of socioeconomic inequality into biodiversity (IneqBio), AP.JP

Abstract

Although biologists have historically focused on studying biodiversity in natural environments, from an ecological perspective, the interior of homes constitutes a complex ecosystem capable of harboring a vast diversity of life forms. This domestic biodiversity results from community assembly processes operating at different spatial scales. On one hand, socioeconomic inequality in metropolitan areas generates environmental heterogeneity that shapes the distribution of macro and microorganisms. On the other hand, individual human habits can either restrict or promote the occurrence of species within the domestic environment. Despite the unequivocal importance of home biodiversity, we still lack an understanding of how these communities vary within complex urban mosaics and their implications for human health. This project will integrate recent methods for documenting biodiversity (environmental DNA) with social, geographic, and public health data, to investigate how socioeconomic variations and individual human habits affect (1) the diversity and (2) composition of arthropods, fungi, and bacteria of medical relevance in homes along a gradient of social inequality in São Paulo. Beyond the academic perspective within the context of community ecology, as an applied outcome of this proposal, we will also investigate (3) whether biodiversity can serve as an indicator of socioeconomic inequality effects on the health of São Paulo's residents. In addition to documenting the overlooked diversity of arthropods, fungi and bacteria of medical relevance in homes, we hope to obtain results that will help us understand the forces structuring biological communities, thereby providing support for more effective management and control these organisms in urban areas.