Abstract
During the third China Arctic Research Expedition (July–September 2008), size-resolved measurements of bacteria-containing particles (BCPs) in the marine boundary layer (MBL) air were conducted during a cruise through the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, the Japan Sea, the Okhotsk Sea, the Bering Sea, the Chukchi Sea, and the Arctic Ocean. The concentrations of total airborne BCPs (TBCPs), non-salt tolerant airborne BCPs (NSBCPs), and salt tolerant airborne BCPs (SBCPs) varied from 29 to 955 CFU m−3 (CFU = Colony Forming Unit), 16 to 919 CFU m−3, and 4 to 276 CFU m−3, with an average value of 275, 182, and 92 CFU m−3, respectively. Although the SBCP concentrations were less than the NSBCP concentrations when averaged over all measurements, there are several cases where the reverse is true (e.g., in the high Arctic Ocean). During the cruise, the TBCP sizes were dominated by the diameter >4.7 μm fraction (accounted for 46.3% on average), while the fine fraction (diameter <2.1 μm) accounted for 27.8%. For NSBCPs and SBCPs, the coarse fraction also was the dominant fraction over most regions. The influence of local meteorological conditions on the abundance, size distributions, and species of airborne bacteria is discussed. Notably, in the atmosphere over the Arctic Ocean the abundance of airborne bacteria was apparently related to the distribution of sea ice. As cultivation based methodologies may underestimate the environmental bacterial communities, it is expected that the abundance of bacteria in the ambient air would be higher than that observed in this study. In order to distinguish different species of bacteria, molecular biological techniques (e.g., 16S rDNA analysis) are required for identification in future investigations.
Highlights
Airborne bacteria are ubiquitous and play an important role in public health [1,2]
The abundance and size distributions of airborne bacteria in the marine boundary layer were investigated during the third China Arctic Research Expedition (July–September, 2008)
non-salt tolerant airborne BCPs (NSBCPs) were observed in the high Arctic Ocean
Summary
Airborne bacteria are ubiquitous and play an important role in public health [1,2]. airborne bacteria may potentially influence the formation of clouds and precipitation by serving as biogenic nuclei of water droplets and ice crystals [2,3,4,5]. Concentrations of atmospheric bacteria collected from marine air arriving at a coastal, cliff-top site in Barbados were about 2–3 orders of magnitude lower than those over land [19]. As to the sources of bacteria in marine air, it has been suggested that bacteria and other primary biological particles can be released into the atmosphere from the sea-surface micro-layer (SML) by the bursting of bubbles in breaking waves, a process that occurs both during wave-breaking at the coasts, and in whitecaps on wind-driven waves in the open ocean [3,21]. Atmospheric turbulence can lead to the transmission of biological aerosols between different regions [26,27], so airborne bacteria over oceans may be derived from other sources and carried to the environment through long-range transport processes. The potential impacts of meteorological variables on the spatial distribution of airborne bacteria are discussed
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