Carbon content of common airborne fungal species and fungal contribution to aerosol organic carbon in a subtropical city |
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| Authors: | Jessica YW Cheng Chak K Chan C-T Lee Arthur PS Lau |
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| Institution: | 1. Sunnybrook Research Institute, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, 2075 Bayview, M4N 3M5 Toronto, Ontario, Canada;2. University of Toronto, Department of Medicine, 223 College Street, M5T 1R4, Toronto, Ontario, Canada;3. Centre de recherche de l''Institut universitaire de cardiologie et de pneumologie de Québec (CRIUCPQ), Université Laval;4. Département de biochimie, de microbiologie et de bio-informatique, Faculté des sciences et de génie, Université Laval, 2725 Ch Ste-Foy, Ville de Québec, QC G1V 4G5, Québec, Canada;5. Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 223 College Street, M5T 1R4 Toronto, Ontario, Canada;1. Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Xi''an Jiaotong University, Xi''an 710049, China;2. State Key laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi''an 710049, China;3. Multiphase Chemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz 55128, Germany;4. South China Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Guangzhou, China;5. Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment Research for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China |
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| Abstract: | Interest in the role and contribution of fungi to atmospheric aerosols and processes grows in the past decade. Substantial data or information such as fungal mass or carbon loading to ambient aerosols is however still lacking. This study aimed to quantify the specific organic carbon content (OC per spore) of eleven fungal species commonly found airborne in the subtropics, and estimated their contribution to organic carbon in aerosols. The specific OC contents showed a size-dependent relationship (r = 0.64, p < 0.05) and ranged from 3.6 to 201.0 pg carbon per spore or yeast cell, giving an average of 6.0 pg carbon per spore (RSD 51%) for spore or cell size less than 10 μm. In accounting for natural variations in the composition and abundance of fungal population, weighted-average carbon content for field samples was adopted using the laboratory determined specific OC values. An average of 5.97 pg carbon per spore (RSD 3.8%) was enumerated from 28 field samples collected at the university campus. The mean fungal OC concentration was 3.7, 6.0 and 9.7 ng m?3 in PM2.5, PM2.5–10 and PM10, respectively. These corresponded to 0.1%, 1.2% and 0.2% of the total OC in PM2.5, PM2.5–10 and PM10, respectively. In the study period, rain provided periods with low total OC but high fungal prevalence and fungi contributed 7–32% OC in PM2.5–10 or 2.4–7.1% OC in PM10. More extensive studies are deserved to better understand the spatial-, temporal- and episodic dependency on the fungal OC contribution to the atmospheric aerosols. |
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