scholarly journals Characterization of atmospheric bioaerosols along the transport pathway of Asian dust during the Dust-Bioaerosol 2016 Campaign

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Tang ◽  
Zhongwei Huang ◽  
Jianping Huang ◽  
Teruya Maki ◽  
Shuang Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract. Previous studies have shown that bioaerosols are injected into the atmosphere during dust events. These bioaerosols may affect leeward ecosystems, human health and agricultural productivity and may even induce climate change. However, bioaerosol dynamics have rarely been investigated along the transport pathway of Asian dust, especially in China, where dust events affect huge areas and massive numbers of people. Given this situation, the Dust-Bioaerosol (DuBi) Campaign was carried out over northern China, and the effects of dust events on the amount and diversity of bioaerosols were investigated. The results indicate that the number of bacteria showed remarkable increases during the dust events, and the diversity of the bacterial communities also increased significantly, as determined by means of microscopic observations with 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining and MiSeq sequencing analysis. These results indicate that dust clouds can carry many bacteria of various types into downwind regions and may have potentially important impacts on ecological environments and climate change. The abundances of DAPI-stained bacteria in the dust samples were one to two orders of magnitude greater than those in the non-dust samples and reached 105 ~ 106 particles m−3. Moreover, the charge capacity of yellow fluorescent particles associated with the DAPI-stained bacteria increased from 5.1 % ± 6.3 % (non-dust samples) to 9.8 % ± 6.3 % (dust samples). A beta diversity analysis of the bacterial communities demonstrated the distinct clustering of separate prokaryotic communities in the dust and non-dust samples. Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria remained the dominant phyla in all samples. As for Erenhot, the relative amounts of Acidobacteria and Chloroflexi have a remarkable rise in dust events. Alphaproteobacteria made the major contribution of the increasing relative amounts of the phylum proteobacteria in all dust samples. In the future, the viability and activity of airborne microbes, the interactions between bioaerosols and other gaseous and solid components in the air, and the effects of bioaerosols on animals and plants, ecological environments and the climate system must be studied in depth to help us understand the behavior of bioaerosols in the air and dust clouds in greater detail.

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 7131-7148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Tang ◽  
Zhongwei Huang ◽  
Jianping Huang ◽  
Teruya Maki ◽  
Shuang Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract. Previous studies have shown that bioaerosols are injected into the atmosphere during dust events. These bioaerosols may affect leeward ecosystems, human health, and agricultural productivity and may even induce climate change. However, bioaerosol dynamics have rarely been investigated along the transport pathway of Asian dust, especially in China where dust events affect huge areas and massive numbers of people. Given this situation, the Dust-Bioaerosol (DuBi) Campaign was carried out over northern China, and the effects of dust events on the amount and diversity of bioaerosols were investigated. The results indicate that the number of bacteria showed remarkable increases during the dust events, and the diversity of the bacterial communities also increased significantly, as determined by means of microscopic observations with 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining and MiSeq sequencing analysis. These results indicate that dust clouds can carry many bacteria of various types into downwind regions and may have potentially important impacts on ecological environments and climate change. The abundances of DAPI-stained bacteria in the dust samples were 1 to 2 orders of magnitude greater than those in the non-dust samples and reached 105–106 particles m−3. Moreover, the concentration ratios of DAPI-stained bacteria to yellow fluorescent particles increased from 5.1 % ± 6.3 % (non-dust samples) to 9.8 % ± 6.3 % (dust samples). A beta diversity analysis of the bacterial communities demonstrated the distinct clustering of separate prokaryotic communities in the dust and non-dust samples. Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria remained the dominant phyla in all samples. As for Erenhot, the relative abundances of Acidobacteria and Chloroflexi had a remarkable rise in dust events. In contrast, the relative abundances of Acidobacteria and Chloroflexi in non-dust samples of R-DzToUb were greater than those in dust samples. Alphaproteobacteria made the major contribution to the increasing relative abundance of the phylum Proteobacteria in all dust samples. The relative abundance of Firmicutes did not exceed 5 % in all the air samples, even though it is the predominant phylum in the surface sand samples from the Gobi Desert. These results illustrate that the bacterial community contained in dust aerosol samples has a different pattern compared with non-dust aerosol samples, and the relative abundances of airborne bacteria are different from those in the surface sand or soil and differ by location and transmitting vector.


2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 12825-12864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. L. Sun ◽  
G. S. Zhuang ◽  
Z. F. Wang ◽  
Y. Wang ◽  
W. J. Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract. TSP and PM2.5 aerosol samples were synchronously collected at six sites along the transport pathway of dust storm from desert regions to coastal areas in the spring of 2004. The aerosol concentration and composition were measured to investigate the regional characteristics of spring Asian dust and its impact on aerosol chemistry over northern China. Based on the daily PM10 concentrations in 13 cities, the northern China could be divided into five regions, i.e., Northern Dust Region, Northeastern Dust Region, Western Dust Region, Inland Passing Region, and Coastal Region. Northern Dust Region was characterized by high content of Ca and Northeastern Dust Region was characterized by low one instead. Northeastern Dust Region was a relatively clean area with the lowest concentrations of pollutants and secondary ions among all sites. Inland Passing Region and Coastal Region showed high concentrations of pollutants, of which As and Pb in Inland Passing Region, and Na+, SO42− and NO3− in Coastal Region were the highest, respectively. The impact of dust on air quality was the greatest in the cities near source regions, and this impact decreased in the order of Yulin/Duolun > Beijing > Qingdao/Shanghai as the increase of transport distance. The spring Asian dust was inclined to affect the chemical components in coarse particles near source regions and those in fine particles in the cities far from source regions. Dust storm could mix significant quantities of pollutants on the pathway and carry them to the downwind cities or dilute the pollutants in the cities over northern China. Each dust episode corresponded to a low ratio of NO3−/SO42− with the lowest value appearing after the peak of dust storm. Asian dust played an important role in buffering and neutralizing the acidity of atmosphere in the cities over northern China, which could lead to the pH in the aerosols increase ~1 in spring.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 593
Author(s):  
Sang-Boom Ryoo ◽  
Jinwon Kim ◽  
Jeong Hoon Cho

Recently, the Korea Meteorological Administration developed Asian Dust Aerosol Model version 3 (ADAM3) by incorporating additional parameters into ADAM2, including anthropogenic particulate matter (PM) emissions, modification of dust generation by considering real-time surface vegetation, and assimilations of surface PM observations and satellite-measured aerosol optical depth. This study evaluates the performance of ADAM3 in identifying Asian dust days over the dust source regions in Northern China and their variations according to regions and soil types by comparing its performance with ADAM2 (from January to June of 2017). In all regions the performance of ADAM3 was markedly improved, especially for Northwestern China, where the threat score (TS) and the probability of detection (POD) improved from 5.4% and 5.5% to 30.4% and 34.4%, respectively. ADAM3 outperforms ADAM2 for all soil types, especially for the sand-type soil for which TS and POD are improved from 39.2.0% and 50.7% to 48.9% and 68.2%, respectively. Despite these improvements in regions and surface soil types, Asian dust emission formulas in ADAM3 need improvement for the loess-type soils to modulate the overestimation of Asian dust events related to anthropogenic emissions in the Huabei Plain and Manchuria.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teruya Maki ◽  
Kazutaka Hara ◽  
Ayumu Iwata ◽  
Kevin C. Lee ◽  
Kei Kawai ◽  
...  

Abstract. Aerosol particles, including airborne microorganisms, are transported through the free troposphere from the Asian continental area to the downwind area in East Asia and can influence climate changes, ecosystem dynamics, and human health. However, the variations present in airborne bacterial communities in the free troposphere over downwind areas are poorly understood, and there are few studies that provide an in-depth examination of the effects of long-range transport of aerosols (natural and anthropogenic particles) on bacterial variations. In this study, the vertical distributions of airborne bacterial communities at high altitudes were investigated and the bacterial variations were compared between dust events and non-dust events. Aerosols were collected at three altitudes from ground level to the free troposphere (upper level: 3,000 m or 2,500 m; middle level: 1,200 m or 500 m; and low level: 10 m) during Asian dust events and non-dust events over the Noto Peninsula, Japan, where westerly winds carry aerosols from the Asian continental areas. During Asian dust events, air masses at high altitudes were transported from the Asian continental area by westerly winds, and Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data indicated high concentrations of non-spherical particles, suggesting that dust-sand particles were transported from the central desert regions of Asia. The air samples collected during the dust events contained 10–100 times higher concentrations of microscopic fluorescent particles and Optical Particle Counter (OPC) measured particles than in non-dust events. The air masses of non-dust events contained lower amounts of dust-sand particles. Additionally, some air samples showed relatively high levels of black carbon, which were likely transported from the Asian continental coasts. Moreover, during the dust events, microbial particles at altitudes of > 1,200 m increased to the concentrations ranging from 1.2 × 106 particles m−3 to 6.6 × 106 particles m−3. In contrast, when dust events disappeared, the microbial particles at > 1,200 m decreased slightly to microbial-particle concentrations ranging from 6.4 × 104 particles m−3 to 8.9 × 105 particles m−3. High-throughput sequencing technology targeting 16S rRNA genes (16S rDNA) revealed that the bacterial communities collected at high altitudes (from 500 m to 3,000 m) during dust events exhibited higher diversities and were predominantly composed of natural-sand/terrestrial bacteria, such as Bacillus members. During non-dust periods, airborne bacteria at high altitudes were mainly composed of anthropogenic/terrestrial bacteria, (Actinobacteria), marine bacteria (Cyanobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria), and plant-associated bacteria (Gammaproteobacteria), which shifted in composition in correspondence with the origins of the air masses and the meteorological conditions. Heterogeneous bacterial populations, originating from terrestrial, marine, and plant-associated categories, were used as an indicator for the mixture levels of air masses originating from the Asian continental area, the Sea of Japan, and the Japanese islands, respectively. The airborne bacterial structures at high altitudes suggested remarkable changes in response to air mass sources, which contributed to the increases in community richness and to the domination of a few bacterial taxa.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 339
Author(s):  
Chaowei Zhou ◽  
Xiaoming Feng ◽  
Yichu Huang ◽  
Xiaofeng Wang ◽  
Xinrong Zhang

Extensive ecosystem restoration is increasingly seen as an essential practice to mitigate climate change and protect the ecological environment. However, the indirect impact of surface vegetation improvement on the regional climate, such as the climate effect of sand-dust events reduction, has never been evaluated. Here, we estimated the feedback of temperature and precipitation on the change of sand-dust events, arising from the vegetation growth with ecological restoration, using a simple theoretical framework with a series of scenario simulations based on a regional climate model (RegCM). The results showed that revegetation reduced dust emissions, with a contribution rate of approximately 40.15%. With the combined influence of ecological restoration and climate change, the cooling effect of sand-dust events strengthened with the increase in the intensity of sand-dust events, which is mainly caused by the strong absorption of shortwave radiation by the atmosphere. The response of precipitation was uncertain because of tropospheric circulation feedback and shortwave radiation absorption. Our results also indicate that changes in sand-dust events caused by vegetation restoration play important roles in shaping the future climate near the arid and semi-arid regions of northern China. The climatic effects of sand-dust events should be included in assessing ecological restoration impacts to promote sustainable development and enhance our understanding of climate change.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teruya Maki ◽  
Shogo Furumoto ◽  
Yuya Asahi ◽  
Kevin C. Lee ◽  
Koichi Watanabe ◽  
...  

Abstract. The westerly wind travelling at high altitudes over East Asia transports aerosols from the Asian deserts and urban areas to downwind areas such as Japan. These long-range transported aerosols include not only mineral particles, but also microbial particles (bioaerosols), that impact the ice-cloud formation processes as ice nuclei. However, the the detailed relations of airborne bacterial dynamics to ice nucleation in high-elevation aerosols have not been investigated. Here, we used the aerosol particles captured in the snow cover at the altitudes of 2450 m on Mt. Tateyama to investigate the sequential changes of ice-nucleation activities and bacterial communities in aerosols and elucidate the relationships between the two processes. After stratification of the snow layers formed on the walls of a snow pit on Mt. Tateyama, snow samples, including aerosol particles, were collected from 70 layers at the lower (winter accumulation) and upper (spring accumulation) parts of the snow wall. The aerosols recorded in the lower parts mainly came from Siberia (Russia), North Asia, and the Sea of Japan, while those in the upper parts showed an increase the Asian-dust particles, which originate from the desert regions and industrial coasts of Asian. The snow samples exhibited high levels of ice nucleation corresponding to the increase of Asian dust particles. Amplicon sequencing analysis using 16S rRNA genes revealed that the bacterial communities in the snow samples predominately included plant associated and marine bacteria (phyla Proteobacteria) during winter; whereas, during spring, when dust events arrived frequently, the majority were terrestrial bacteria of phyla Actinobacteria and Firmicutes. The relative abundances of Firmicutes (Bacilli) showed a significant positive relationship to the ice nucleation in snow samples. Presumably, Asian dust events change the airborne bacterial communities over Mt. Tateyama and carry terrestrial bacterial populations, which possibly induce ice-nucleation activities, thereby indirectly effecting on climate changes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1777-1787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seungkyu K. Hong ◽  
Sang-Boom Ryoo ◽  
Jinwon Kim ◽  
Sang-Sam Lee

Abstract This study evaluates the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) Asian Dust Aerosol Model 2 (ADAM2) for Asian dust events over the dust source regions in northern China during the first half of 2017. Using the observed hourly particulate matter (PM) concentration from the China Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and station weather reports, we find that a threshold value of PM10–PM2.5 = 400 μg m−3 works well in defining an Asian dust event for both the MEP-observed and the ADAM2-simulated data. In northwestern China, ADAM2 underestimates the observed dust days mainly due to underestimation of dust emissions; ADAM2 overestimates the observed Asian dust days over Manchuria due to overestimation of dust emissions. Performance of ADAM2 in estimating Asian dust emissions varies quite systematically according to dominant soil types within each region. The current formulation works well for the Gobi and sand soil types, but substantially overestimates dust emissions for the loess-type soils. This suggests that the ADAM2 model errors are likely to originate from the soil-type-dependent dust emissions formulation and that the formulation for the mixed and loess-type soils needs to be recalibrated. In addition, inability to account for the concentration of fine PMs from anthropogenic sources results in large false-alarm rates over heavily industrialized regions. Direct calculation of PM2.5 in the upcoming ADAM3 model is expected to alleviate the problems related to anthropogenic PMs in identifying Asian dust events.


2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 677-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keunje Yoo ◽  
Il Han ◽  
Kwan Soo Ko ◽  
Tae Kwon Lee ◽  
Hyunji Yoo ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (19) ◽  
pp. 11877-11897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teruya Maki ◽  
Kazutaka Hara ◽  
Ayumu Iwata ◽  
Kevin C. Lee ◽  
Kei Kawai ◽  
...  

Abstract. Aerosol particles, including airborne microorganisms, are transported through the free troposphere from the Asian continental area to the downwind area in East Asia and can influence climate changes, ecosystem dynamics, and human health. However, the variations present in airborne bacterial communities in the free troposphere over downwind areas are poorly understood, and there are few studies that provide an in-depth examination of the effects of long-range transport of aerosols (natural and anthropogenic particles) on bacterial variations. In this study, the vertical distributions of airborne bacterial communities at high altitudes were investigated and the bacterial variations were compared between dust events and non-dust events.Aerosols were collected at three altitudes from ground level to the free troposphere (upper level: 3000 or 2500 m; middle level: 1200 or 500 m; and low level: 10 m) during Asian dust events and non-dust events over the Noto Peninsula, Japan, where westerly winds carry aerosols from the Asian continental areas. During Asian dust events, air masses at high altitudes were transported from the Asian continental area by westerly winds, and laser imaging detection and ranging (lidar) data indicated high concentrations of non-spherical particles, suggesting that dust-sand particles were transported from the central desert regions of Asia. The air samples collected during the dust events contained 10–100 times higher concentrations of microscopic fluorescent particles and optical particle counter (OPC) measured particles than in non-dust events. The air masses of non-dust events contained lower amounts of dust-sand particles. Additionally, some air samples showed relatively high levels of black carbon, which were likely transported from the Asian continental coasts. Moreover, during the dust events, microbial particles at altitudes of  >  1200 m increased to the concentrations ranging from 1. 2 × 106 to 6. 6 × 106 particles m−3. In contrast, when dust events disappeared, the microbial particles at  >  1200 m decreased slightly to microbial-particle concentrations ranging from 6. 4 × 104 to 8. 9 × 105 particles m−3.High-throughput sequencing technology targeting 16S rRNA genes (16S rDNA) revealed that the bacterial communities collected at high altitudes (from 500 to 3000 m) during dust events exhibited higher diversities and were predominantly composed of natural-sand/terrestrial bacteria, such as Bacillus members. During non-dust periods, airborne bacteria at high altitudes were mainly composed of anthropogenic/terrestrial bacteria (Actinobacteria), marine bacteria (Cyanobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria), and plant-associated bacteria (Gammaproteobacteria), which shifted in composition in correspondence with the origins of the air masses and the meteorological conditions. The airborne bacterial structures at high altitudes suggested remarkable changes in response to air mass sources, which contributed to the increases in community richness and to the domination of a few bacterial taxa.


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