Wildland fire smoke alters the composition, diversity, and potential atmospheric function of microbial life in the aerobiome

The atmosphere contains a diverse reservoir of microbes but the sources and factors contributing to microbial aerosol variability are not well constrained. To advance understanding of microbial emissions in wildfire smoke, we used unmanned aircraft systems to analyze the aerosols above high-intensit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:ISME Communications Vol. 2; no. 1; p. 8
Main Authors: Kobziar, Leda N, Vuono, David, Moore, Rachel, Christner, Brent C, Dean, Timothy, Betancourt, Doris, Watts, Adam C, Aurell, Johanna, Gullett, Brian
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Oxford University Press 25.01.2022
Nature Publishing Group UK
Subjects:
Aerosols
Air pollution
Aircraft
Biodiversity
Biogeography
Biomass burning
Emissions
Ethanol
Forest & brush fires
Forest fires
Gene flow
Meteorology
Microorganisms
Outdoor air quality
Prescribed fire
Smoke
Unmanned aircraft
Wildfires
United States > US
Utah
ISSN:2730-6151, 2730-6151
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The atmosphere contains a diverse reservoir of microbes but the sources and factors contributing to microbial aerosol variability are not well constrained. To advance understanding of microbial emissions in wildfire smoke, we used unmanned aircraft systems to analyze the aerosols above high-intensity forest fires in the western United States. Our results show that samples of the smoke contained ~four-fold higher concentrations of cells (1.02 ± 0.26 × 105 m−3) compared to background air, with 78% of microbes in smoke inferred to be viable. Fivefold higher taxon richness and ~threefold enrichment of ice nucleating particle concentrations in smoke implies that wildfires are an important source of diverse bacteria and fungi as well as meteorologically relevant aerosols. We estimate that such fires emit 3.71 × 1014 microbial cells ha−1 under typical wildfire conditions in western US forests and demonstrate that wildland biomass combustion has a large-scale influence on the local atmospheric microbial assemblages. Given the long-range transport of wildfire smoke emissions, these results expand the concept of a wildfire’s perimeter of biological impact and have implications to biogeography, gene flow, the dispersal of plant, animal, and human pathogens, and meteorology.
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ISSN:2730-6151
2730-6151
DOI:10.1038/s43705-022-00089-5