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Browsing by Subject "biodiversity hypothesis"

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  • Siirtonurmen ja metsäkuntan vaikutus päiväkoti- ikäisten lasten ihon mikrobiomin monimuotoisuuteen 
    Manninen, Juulia (2022)
    Immune-mediated diseases, such as various allergies and asthma, are increasing rapidly in an urbanized world where biodiversity is steadily declining. Decreased biodiversity and homogenous microbiota have been associated with weaker immune defence. Studies show that contact with the natural environment enriches the human microbiota, promotes immune response, and protects against allergies and inflammatory diseases. For this reason, in order to prevent immune-mediated diseases, solutions have been sought from nature-based approaches in which the immune system encounters environmental microbial stimuli in a natural way. The aim of this master's thesis was to study how different nature-based materials (sod and forest floor) affect the skin microbiota of kindergarten-age children and to examine how different factors such as varying weather conditions and different sampling times affect the results. The results supported the hygiene hypothesis and previous research according to which increasing biodiversity can have a positive effect on human skin microbial communities. A positive effect on children's skin was achieved with sod alone, which is important information in the development of suitable biodiverse materials for urban planning. The results also supported the surmise that different weather conditions and sampling methods can significantly affect the results.
  • The differences between bacterial communities in white clover (Trifolium repens) in rural and urban areas 
    Mäkelä, Iida (2021)
    Microbial diversity can be found everywhere around us. The diversity is however declining globally and the diversity loss is most visible in highly urbanized areas. The lack of microbial biodiversity has been linked to increased risk of certain im-mune mediated diseases most prevalent within urban population. Understanding how diversity differs between urban and rural areas can help us to figure out mechanisms behind biodiversity loss and higher frequency of immune-mediated dis-eases and develop prevention methods for the latter. The aim of the thesis is to study how bacterial communities differ between urban and rural areas using indicator species as proxy. The aim is also to find out if the results support the biodiversity hypothesis. The results of the thesis found out significant differences in diversity indexes between bacterial communities in urban and rural areas, which supports the biodiversity hypothesis. The study also found differences in Proteobacteria diversity index-es, which have been linked to some immune mediated diseases in previous studies.

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