title: Estimating the abundance of airborne pollen and fungal spores at variable elevations using an aircraft: how high can they fly?
abstract: Airborne pollen and fungal spores are monitored mainly in highly populated, urban environments, for allergy prevention purposes. However, their sources can frequently be located outside cities' fringes with more vegetation. So as to shed light to this paradox, we investigated the diversity and abundance of airborne pollen and fungal spores at various environmental regimes. We monitored pollen and spores using an aircraft and a car, at elevations from sea level to 2,000 m above ground, in the region of Thesssaloniki, Greece. We found a total of 24 pollen types and more than 15 spore types. Pollen and spores were detected throughout the elevational transect. Lower elevations exhibited higher pollen concentrations in only half of plant taxa and higher fungal spore concentrations in only Ustilago. Pinaceae and Quercus pollen were the most abundant recorded by airplane (>54% of the total). Poaceae pollen were the most abundant via car measurements (>77% of the total). Cladosporium and Alternaria spores were the most abundant in all cases (aircraft: >69% and >17%, car: >45% and >27%, respectively). We conclude that pollen and fungal spores can be diverse and abundant even outside the main source area, evidently because of long-distance transport incidents.
authors.affiliation: Chair and Institute of Environmental Medicine, UNIKA-T, Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Augsburg, Germany.|CK-CARE, Christine Kühne - Center for Allergy and Research and Education, Davos, Switzerland.|Department of Ecology, School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Athanasios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Damialis
authors.affiliation: 1st Pulmonary Department, "G. Papanikolaou" General Hospital of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Evangelos
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kaimakamis
authors.affiliation: 1st Pulmonary Department, "G. Papanikolaou" General Hospital of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Konoglou
authors.affiliation: Internal Medicine Department, "G. Gennimatas" General Hospital of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Ioannis
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Akritidis
authors.affiliation: Chair and Institute of Environmental Medicine, UNIKA-T, Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Augsburg, Germany.|CK-CARE, Christine Kühne - Center for Allergy and Research and Education, Davos, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Traidl-Hoffmann
authors.affiliation: Pulmonary Department, Faculty of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
authors.forename: Dimitrios
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gioulekas
mesh_terms: D000391:Air Microbiology; D000401:Aircraft; D000485:Allergens / Q000502:physiology*; D000528:Alternaria / Q000502:physiology; D002963:Cladosporium / Q000502:physiology; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D011058:Pollen / Q000502:physiology*; D012621:Seasons; D013172:Spores, Fungal / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D000485:Allergens