A Sponge Is The Perfect Environment To Host Various Types of Bacteria, Study Says.

hand wringing out a sudsy sponge in a stainless steel sink — Air pockets in a sponge mimic healthy soil, which has various nooks and crannies to host microbial communities. Michael Bihlmayer / EyeEm via Getty Images

An everyday item, in this case, the sponge in your kitchen — is a breeding ground and home for more diverse types of bacteria than a petri dish in a laboratory, new research has found.

A sponge's spatial partitioning and numerous different-sized nooks and crannies cater to bacterias that prefer isolated environments and those that like to be around other organisms, making it the best of both words for microbial communities, according to a study published in the journal of Nature Chemical Biology.

Bacterias thrive in secluded spaces, like the smaller pores of a sponge, and won't bully other organisms for more room, while the sponge's larger wells allow for microbes that depend on the presence of others to survive.

“
Bacteria are just like people living through the pandemic—some find it difficult being isolated while others thrive”
”

— study co-author Lingchong You, a professor of biomedical engineering at Duke

Researchers have found the E. coli density and presence in two different ways. They used plates with varying degrees of spatial partitioning, ranging from six to 1,536 isolated wells. The plates showed that the amount of division in spaces has an impact on what type of bacteria tend to thrive the most. Researchers then performed another experiment with a kitchen sponge and a tube. The results found that in a sponge, there are 60% more diverse members than in a well-mixed environment in reference to a compacted habitat bacteria are in when placed inside a tube.

Environments that provide a mix of large chambers and small wells allow for the most diverse microbial communities. Sponges are a perfect growth environment for such microbes. The United States Department of Agriculture suggests you microwave sponges for one to two minutes or dishwashing them with a drying cycle. You should also be mindful to replace sponges every few weeks on top of disinfecting them and keep them away from raw meat.