MYCOBIOTA ISOLATED FROM THE AIR, DUST AND THE DOCUMENTS SURFACE PRESERVED IN REPOSITORIES OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVE OF CUBA

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the concentration and diversity of fungal species in the air, dust and documents surface kept in two repositories of the National Archive of the Republic of Cuba (ARNAC) characterized by having two different circulation systems of air. The outdoor and indoor air of two repositories (Repository-13 [R-13] with natural cross ventilation and Map library [ML] with air conditioning) were sampled with a biocollector at two different times corresponding to the two seasons of the year; the dust was passively sampled and the surfaces of 11 documents preserved in these repositories were sampled. The maximum concentrations of fungi were obtained in the season of little rain and the indoor/outdoor ratios in all cases were ≤ 1.0, demonstrating the good environmental quality of the repositories. The average dust loads collected in ML and R-13 were 11.7 and 31.6 mg/m²/day, respectively. From dust, the predominant genera were Cladosporium, Penicillium and Aspergillus, but Aureobasidium, Botrytis, Drechslera, Paecilomyces, Pithomyces and Trichoderma were new records for the ARNAC´s dust; likewise, a high diversity of species was obtained. Although the documents analyzed were apparently clean, fungi were isolated in concentrations that ranged between 5 x 10 and 3.5 x 10² CFU/cm². The species A. flavus, A. glaucus, A. niger, P. janthinellum and P.raistrickii were common in all the documents analyzed. The species similarity (Sørensen similarity coefficient, QS) among the analyzed niches (indoor air, outdoor air, collected dust, document surface) showed that the QS_TOTAL obtained by comparing the species of the indoor air of the repositories with those of the dust collected, was high. The species diversity profile followed the order: settled dust > airborne > document surface.