Analysis of the biological diversity in air at different heights by next-generation sequencing

Abstract

Bioaerosols are biological particles (pollen, bacteria, fungi, virus, etc.) that are released to the atmosphere from very diverse sources: plants, animals, soil, ocean surfaces, human activities, etc. Nowadays, many works are focused on bioaerosols because of their influence on meteorology and also their effects in our economy and health. In fact, some studies have developed new methods to detect specific pathogens in air samples for quick monitoring of these bioaerosols. However, there is still missing information about how some factors can influence on the diversity and distribution of bioaerosols as, for example, the altitude. In this research, we used Next-Generation DNA Sequencing (NGS) to analyze the biological diversity of three bioaerosols (pollen, fungi and bacteria) at four different heights (1.5 m, 130 m, 500 m and 1000 m) in a 25 km transect.