Abstract
Birch belongs to the most important allergenic taxa in Europe, therefore information on the start dates of the pollen season is very important for allergists and their patients as well as for climatologists. The study examined changes in the start of the birch pollen season as well as determined the trend of these changes. Pollen monitoring was performed in Lublin (eastern Poland) in the period 2001–2019 using the volumetric method. The Makra-test was used to detect periods with significantly higher or lower average of the onset than the average for the whole dataset. Two significant falls in the average of the pollen season start were found in 2007 and 2014. Besides, taking into account the 2-3-year rhythm of high and low concentrations of birch pollen in the atmospheric air, linear trends were fitted for the subsets of high and low abundance seasons. Significant changes in Betula pollen season start dates were only determined for the highly abundance seasons, while the results for seasons with a low concentration did not allow rejecting the hypothesis about the lack of a linear trend in the changes in the studied parameter. Moreover, a significant polynomial relationship was found between the beginning of a pollen season and the average values of monthly temperatures preceded a season. These analyses show that the start dates of the Betula pollen season are getting significantly earlier. The dynamics of changes differ between seasons with high and low concentrations of pollen.
Highlights
Birch is a common tree in north-western and central Europe [1, 2]
Over the 19-year study period, the start dates of the birch pollen season in Lublin was between March 29 and April 22
A decreasing linear trend can be fitted in the scatterplot of the Start parameter values, which means an ever-earlier onset of the birch pollen season in Lublin (Fig 2)
Summary
Birch is a common tree in north-western and central Europe [1, 2]. Its pollen is a cause of allergies in the form of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis and probably asthma; disease symptoms in people sensitized to birch pollen appear suddenly, without initial slowly developing symptoms as it is in the case of sensitization to other allergens [3]. The start dates of the birch pollen season differ from year to year [4, 5]. This seasonal characteristic is very important in prevention and treatment of pollen allergy. Allergy symptoms can occur in sensitive people already at a daily concentration of 20 pollen grains/m3, whereas in most allergic people they are triggered when the pollen concentration reaches 80 pollen grains/m3 [6].
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