Abstract
Aerobiology is a growing research area that covers the study of aerosols with a biological origin from the air that surrounds us to space through the different atmospheric layers. Bioaerosols have captured a growing importance in atmospheric process-related fields such as meteorology and atmospheric chemistry. The potential dissemination of pathogens and allergens through the air has raised public health concern and has highlighted the need for a better prediction of airborne microbial composition and dynamics. In this review, we focused on the sources and processes that most likely determine microbial community composition and dynamics in the air that directly surrounds us, the planetary boundary layer. Planetary boundary layer microbial communities are a mix of microbial cells that likely originate mainly from local source ecosystems (as opposed to distant sources). The adverse atmospheric conditions (i.e., UV radiation, desiccation, presence of radicals, etc.) might influence microbial survival and lead to the physical selection of the most resistant cells during aerosolization and/or aerial transport. Future work should further investigate how atmospheric chemicals and physics influence microbial survival and adaptation in order to be able to model the composition of planetary boundary layer microbial communities based on the surrounding landscapes and meteorology.
Highlights
Aerobiology is a growing research area that covers the study of aerosols of a biological origin suspended in the atmosphere, from the air that directly surrounds us to space by going through the different atmospheric layers (Figure 1)
Most of the studies evaluating the metabolic potential of airborne microbial communities are based on cultivable microorganisms, and the conditions in which these experiments are carried out are far from those found in the atmosphere
The current development of culture-independent investigations in aeromicrobiology is producing valuable knowledge regarding the microbial ecology of airborne microbial communities
Summary
Aerobiology is a growing research area that covers the study of aerosols of a biological origin (i.e., bioaerosols) suspended in the atmosphere, from the air that directly surrounds us (both indoors and outdoors) to space by going through the different atmospheric layers (Figure 1). Aerosolized microbial cells generally enter the days planetary boundary boundaryhorizontally layer, airborne microorganisms might have a residence time of a few before returning layer from which a yet unknownor quantity might be(model transferred to the free troposphere might to the Earth’s surface due to gravity precipitation assuming that microbialthat cells behave depend on the meteorological conditions and global air circulation. Despite an obvious continuum ofshowed the and because ofindifferences in aerosol dynamics, chemical composition, and physical different troposphere microbial communities the planetary boundary layer and free troposphere [32,46] and onmight the vertical distribution of airborne communities showed suggestedconditions, that someinvestigations microbial taxa be filtered out during verticalmicrobial transport [46]. [46]).site in Austria (3106 m above sea level, [46])
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