Spatial variability of inhalable fungal communities in airborne PM across Nanchang, China.

Although fungi are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and have important effect on human health, their spatial variability about diversity and taxonomic composition, remain poorly understood. Considering the differences of environmental conditions, distinct airborne fungal communities were expected in the urban, suburban and forest areas. To test this hypothesis, PM samples were consecutively collected for 14 days across Nanchang, China. The results showed that fungal diversities of samples from forest were higher than that from the other two areas. Even though the airborne fungal communities at one sampling site fluctuated during the short-term period, the compositions in the forest significantly diverged from the other two areas (Anosim and Adonis: p < 0.01). Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) and mantel test (p < 0.01) indicated that these disparities among sampling sites were partly drove by air pollutants. High concentrations of air particles (PM and PM) and gaseous pollutants (NO and CO) associated with human activities were accompanied by high relative abundances of several genera such as Alternaria, Penicillium and Coprinellus. Likewise, Pearson correlation analysis showed that rainfall and relative humidity enhanced the relative abundances of 13 genera like Malassezia and Schizophyllum. Notably, part of these genera was potential allergens and pathogens to human, and it seemed that there were higher health risks in urban and suburban. This study furthers our understanding of the variation of airborne fungal community in different land-use types and different treatments may be applied to deal with the potential threat of airborne fungi.