Differences in buildings have a considerable impact on the microbiome it can host.
The building and its unique features is a significant determinant of the quality of the product coming out. However, the products coming out of the building often have more microbes than found in a building. For example, there are vastly greater numbers of microbes in a liter of wine than in the entire microbiome present in the air of a typical house.
People who inhabit buildings also contribute to the microbiome. In a room with several people, carbon dioxide (CO2) builds up over time and air turnover can be measured by the change of carbon dioxide over time. However, in a winery, air turnover is much more rapid since deadly levels of carbon dioxide accumulate from the yeast fermentation. Therefore, wineries are much more open to ambient air all the time and microbes can come in and out.
In a creamery or cheese plant access to ambient air is limited by air filtration, cooling systems and barriers in doorways that retain an optimum room temperature to discourage rapid microbial growth.
Figure 3 presents data on temperature, humidity, CO2, VOCs and particle sizes collected by sensors over five days in a winery. The data collected during five days of fermentation at the UC Davis winery show daily patterns in temperature and humidity, due to the fact that there are doors open during the working period that are then closed at the end of the work day. This results in air cooling within the building and increasing humidity as wet surfaces from cleaning begin to dry out. The increasing peak heights of the VOCs is due to increasing juice volume that is actively fermenting in the wine tanks.Figure 4 provides data collected from sensors that monitor similar parameters a creamery. Data was collected during five days of cheese ripening at a commercial creamery. The satellite nodes collecting data in rooms neighboring the main node provides evidence of how air environment changes in one room affect the same parameters in other rooms. More specifically, the satellite nodes offer a mapping of the indigenous vs introduced organisms in each room. The introduced organisms can appear due to movement of people in and out of rooms or air flowing room to room.
