Bruno Antonia, Fumagalli Sara, Ghisleni Giulia, Labra Massimo
Biotechnology and Biosciences Department, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy.
Microorganisms. 2022 Nov 22;10(12):2311. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms10122311.
Built environments are, for most of us, our natural habitat. In the last 50 years, the built-up area has more than doubled, with a massive biodiversity loss. The undeniable benefits of a city providing all the basic needs to a growing population showed longer-term and less obvious costs to human health: autoimmune and non-communicable diseases, as well as antimicrobial resistance, have reached unprecedented and alarming levels. Humans coevolved with microbes, and this long-lasting alliance is affected by the loss of connection with natural environments, misuse of antibiotics, and highly sanitized environments. Our aim is to direct the focus onto the microbial communities harbored by the built environments we live in. They represent the nexus for urban regeneration, which starts from a healthy environment. Planning a city means considering, in a two-fold way, the ecosystem health and the multidimensional aspects of wellbeing, including social, cultural, and aesthetic values. The significance of this perspective is inspiring guidelines and strategies for the urban regeneration of the cities of tomorrow, exploiting the invaluable role of microbial biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it could provide to create the robust scientific knowledge that is necessary for a bioinformed design of buildings and cities for healthy and sustainable living.
对我们大多数人来说，人造环境是我们的自然栖息地。在过去50年里，建成区面积增加了一倍多，生物多样性大量丧失。城市为不断增长的人口提供所有基本需求，其带来的不可否认的好处对人类健康产生了长期且不那么明显的代价：自身免疫性疾病、非传染性疾病以及抗菌耐药性已达到前所未有的惊人水平。人类与微生物共同进化，这种长期的共生关系受到与自然环境失去联系、抗生素的滥用以及高度清洁的环境的影响。我们的目标是将关注点转向我们所居住的人造环境中所蕴含的微生物群落。它们代表着城市更新的关键节点，而城市更新始于健康的环境。规划一座城市意味着要从两方面考虑生态系统健康以及幸福的多维度方面，包括社会、文化和审美价值。这一观点的重要性在于为未来城市的更新提供指导方针和策略，利用微生物生物多样性及其所能提供的生态系统服务的宝贵作用，来创造生物信息设计建筑和城市以实现健康可持续生活所需的坚实科学知识。
