Arthropods of the great indoors: characterizing diversity inside urban and suburban homes

Although humans and arthropods have been living and evolving together for all of our history, we know very little about the arthropods we share our homes with apart from major pest groups. Here we surveyed, for the first time, the complete arthropod fauna of the indoor biome in 50 houses (located in and around Raleigh, North Carolina, USA). We discovered high diversity, with a conservative estimate range of 32–211 morphospecies, and 24–128 distinct arthropod families per house. The majority of this indoor diversity (73%) was made up of true flies (Diptera), spiders (Araneae), beetles (Coleoptera), and wasps and kin (Hymenoptera, especially ants: Formicidae). Much of the arthropod diversity within houses did not consist of synanthropic species, but instead included arthropods that were filtered from the surrounding landscape. As such, common pest species were found less frequently than benign species. Some of the most frequently found arthropods in houses, such as gall midges (Cecidomyiidae) and book lice (Liposcelididae), are unfamiliar to the general public despite their ubiquity. These findings present a new understanding of the diversity, prevalence, and distribution of the arthropods in our daily lives. Considering their impact as household pests, disease vectors, generators of allergens, and facilitators of the indoor microbiome, advancing our knowledge of the ecology and evolution of arthropods in homes has major economic and human health implications.

[1]  F. S. Bodenheimer Butterflies and Moths (Lepidoptera) , 1951 .

[2]  S. Mcneill,et al.  Butterflies and Moths , 1964 .

[3]  E. Legner,et al.  The Housefly, Musca domestica Linnaeus, as an Exotic Species in the Western Hemisphere Incites Biological Control Studies , 1966, The Canadian Entomologist.

[4]  William D. McEnroe,et al.  A Manual of Acarology , 1978 .

[5]  J. B. Johnson,et al.  A neuropterous larva uses an allomone to attack termites , 1981, Nature.

[6]  R. Foelix,et al.  The biology of spiders. , 1987 .

[7]  L. Roth A taxonomic revision of the genus Blattella Caudell(Dictyoptera, Blattaria: Blattellidae) , 1985 .

[8]  G. Bennett,et al.  Distribution and movement patterns of German cockroaches (Dictyoptera: Blattellidae) within apartment buildings. , 1990, Journal of medical entomology.

[9]  L. Roth The cockroach genera Sigmella Hebard and Scalida Hebard (Dictyoptera: Blattaria: Blattellidae) , 1991 .

[10]  J. Hahn,et al.  Public Attitudes Toward Urban Arthropods in Minnesota , 1991 .

[11]  I. Bernstein,et al.  Prevalence of dust mites in the homes of people with asthma living in eight different geographic areas of the United States. , 1992, The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology.

[12]  I. Oliver,et al.  Invertebrate Morphospecies as Surrogates for Species: A Case Study , 1996 .

[13]  M. J. Colloff,et al.  Distribution and abundance of dust mites within homes , 1998, Allergy.

[14]  A. Baz,et al.  Distribution of domestic Psocoptera in Madrid apartments , 1999, Medical and veterinary entomology.

[15]  Nancy E. McIntyre,et al.  Ecology of Urban Arthropods: A Review and a Call to Action , 2000 .

[16]  V. Mahler,et al.  An Arthropod Assemblage and the Ecological Conditions in a Byre at the Neolithic Settlement of Weier, Switzerland , 2000 .

[17]  E. Panagiotakopulu New Records for Ancient Pests: Archaeoentomology in Egypt , 2001 .

[18]  E. Panagiotakopulu Insect remains from the collections in the Egyptian Museum of Turin , 2003 .

[19]  E. Galili,et al.  Archaeobotanical and archaeoentomological evidence from a well at Atlit-Yam indicates colder, more humid climate on the Israeli coast during the PPNC period , 2004 .

[20]  E. Panagiotakopulu Dipterous remains and archaeological interpretation , 2004 .

[21]  W. Robinson Urban Insects and Arachnids: A Handbook of Urban Entomology , 2005 .

[22]  Paul M. Choate,et al.  Evolution of the Insects , 2006 .

[23]  H. Kenward,et al.  Insect species associations characterise past occupation sites , 2006 .

[24]  A. Keller,et al.  Drosophila melanogaster's history as a human commensal , 2007, Current Biology.

[25]  M. McKinney,et al.  Effects of urbanization on species richness: A review of plants and animals , 2008, Urban Ecosystems.

[26]  D. Whitman,et al.  The significance of body size in the Orthoptera: a review , 2008 .

[27]  A. Jansen,et al.  Paleoparasitology of Chagas disease--a review. , 2009, Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.

[28]  Chow‐Yang Lee,et al.  Survey of bed bugs in infested premises in Malaysia and Singapore. , 2010, Journal of vector ecology : journal of the Society for Vector Ecology.

[29]  E. Vargo,et al.  Population Genetic Structure of the German Cockroach (Blattodea: Blattellidae) in Apartment Buildings , 2010, Journal of medical entomology.

[30]  E. Vargo,et al.  Population genetic structure in german cockroaches (blattella germanica): differentiated islands in an agricultural landscape. , 2011, The Journal of heredity.

[31]  S. Fattorini Insect extinction by urbanization: A long term study in Rome , 2011 .

[32]  W. Cranshaw A Review of Nuisance Invader Household Pests of the United States , 2011 .

[33]  L. Kratochvíl,et al.  Mitochondrial DNA and morphology show independent evolutionary histories of bedbug Cimex lectularius (Heteroptera: Cimicidae) on bats and humans , 2012, Parasitology Research.

[34]  P. Klimov,et al.  Is permanent parasitism reversible?--critical evidence from early evolution of house dust mites. , 2013, Systematic biology.

[35]  Noah Fierer,et al.  Home Life: Factors Structuring the Bacterial Diversity Found within and between Homes , 2013, PloS one.

[36]  J. Throne,et al.  Evaluation of Potential Attractants for Liposcelis bostrychophila (Psocoptera: Liposcelididae) , 2014, Journal of economic entomology.

[37]  S. Fattorini Urban biodiversity hotspots are not related to the structure of green spaces: a case study of tenebrionid beetles from Rome, Italy , 2014, Urban Ecosystems.

[38]  R Core Team,et al.  R: A language and environment for statistical computing. , 2014 .

[39]  R. Dunn,et al.  Too big to be noticed: cryptic invasion of Asian camel crickets in North American houses , 2014, PeerJ.

[40]  B. Brown,et al.  Opportunity in our Ignorance: Urban Biodiversity Study Reveals 30 New Species and One New Nearctic Record for Megaselia (Diptera: Phoridae) in Los Angeles (California, USA). , 2015, Zootaxa.

[41]  James F. Meadow,et al.  Evolution of the indoor biome. , 2015, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[42]  Martin Hauser,et al.  Strange Little Flies in the Big City: Exotic Flower-Breeding Drosophilidae (Diptera) in Urban Los Angeles , 2015, PloS one.