Houseplants rise indoor microbiota diversity

Houseplants increase the diversity of a home’s indoor microbiota, said a research study carried out by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and international collaborators.

The study published recently in the science journal Indoor Air, said THL in a press release on Wednesday.

Earlier studies have shown that higher diversity of microbes within the child’s home, in particular of microbes of outdoor environmental origin, can reduce the risk of developing asthma and allergies later in life.

To date, there is however little research on the effect of houseplants on the home microbiota.

“According to our recent study, houseplants contribute to shaping the microbiota we are exposed to in our homes. We still need to better understand though, what types of microbes are specifically sourced by houseplants into the indoor environment and whether these microbiota modifications are in fact beneficial to human health”, said THL's chief researcher Martin Täubel.

An interesting finding of the study was that only few plants were enough to already observe an effect on the diversity of the indoor microbiota.

“If we do get additional evidence on the health benefits of this indoor microbiota diversification caused by plants, then this could be an easy way to transform indoor spaces towards more health promoting, asthma and allergy protective environments. In addition to plants just being pleasing to the eye”, Täubel said.

Earlier studies have also looked at whether houseplants could improve indoor air quality by removing harmful chemicals from the air.

However, this turned out to be not feasible, since a very large, impracticable number of plants would be needed to effectively clean the indoor air of contaminants.

For this research, samples from Belgian residential homes were collected and analyzed. This study links to recent national and international research efforts that explore how a child’s early life microbial environment could be modified towards health promotion. THL researchers were responsible for microbiota analysis, data interpretation and reporting.

The article “Indoor green can modify the indoor dust microbial communities” was published in March in the scientific journal Indoor Air.