The weak effects of climatic change on Plantago pollen concentration: 17 years of monitoring in Northwestern Spain

Abstract

Plantago L. species are very common in nitrified areas such as roadsides and their pollen is a major cause of pollinosis in temperate regions. In this study, we sampled airborne pollen grains in the city of León (NW, Spain) from January 1995 to December 2011, by using a Burkard® 7-day-recording trap. The percentage of Plantago pollen compared to the total pollen count ranged from 11% (1997) to 3% (2006) in the period under study. Peak pollen concentrations were recorded in May and June. Our 17-year analysis failed to disclose significant changes in the seasonal trend of plantain pollen concentration. In addition, there were no important changes in the start dates of pollen release and the meteorological parameters analyzed did not show significant variations in their usual trends. We analyzed the influence of several meteorological parameters on Plantago pollen concentration to explain the differences in pollen concentration trends during the study. Our results show that temperature, sun hours, evaporation, and relative humidity are the meteorological parameters best correlated to the behavior of Plantago pollen grains. In general, the years with low pollen concentrations correspond to the years with less precipitation or higher temperatures. We calculated the approximate Plantago flowering dates using the cumulative sum of daily maximum temperatures and compared them with the real bloom dates. The differences obtained were 4 days in 2009, 3 days in 2010, and 1 day in 2011 considering the complete period of pollination.