Wu Ruoyu, Song Yiluan, Head Jennifer R, Katz Daniel S W, Peay Kabir G, Shedden Kerby, Zhu Kai
School for Environment and Sustainability University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI USA.
Institute for Global Change Biology University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI USA.
Geohealth. 2025 Jun 30;9(7):e2024GH001323. doi: 10.1029/2024GH001323. eCollection 2025 Jul.
Phenological shifts due to climate change have been extensively studied in plants and animals. Yet, the responses of fungal spores-organisms important to ecosystems and major airborne allergens-remain understudied. This knowledge gap limits our understanding of their ecological and public health implications. To address this, we analyzed a long-term (2003-2022), large-scale (the continental US) data set of airborne fungal spores collected by the US National Allergy Bureau. We first pre-processed the spore data by gap-filling and smoothing. Afterward, we extracted 10 metrics describing the phenology (e.g., start and end of season) and intensity (e.g., peak concentration and integral) of fungal spore seasons. These metrics were derived using two complementary but not mutually exclusive approaches-ecological and public health approaches, defined as percentiles of total spore concentration and allergenic thresholds of spore concentration, respectively. Using linear mixed-effects models, we quantified annual shifts in these metrics across the continental US. We revealed a significant advancement in the onset of the spore seasons defined in both ecological (11 days, 95% confidence interval: 0.4-23 days) and public health (22 days, 6-38 days) approaches over two decades. Meanwhile, total spore concentrations in an annual cycle and in a spore allergy season tended to decrease over time. The earlier start of the spore season was significantly correlated with climatic variables, such as warmer temperatures and altered precipitations. Overall, our findings suggest possible climate-driven advanced fungal spore seasons, highlighting the importance of climate change mitigation and adaptation in public health decision-making.
气候变化导致的物候变化在动植物中已得到广泛研究。然而，对生态系统至关重要且作为主要空气传播过敏原的真菌孢子生物体的反应仍未得到充分研究。这一知识空白限制了我们对其生态和公共卫生影响的理解。为解决这一问题，我们分析了美国国家过敏局收集的关于空气传播真菌孢子的长期（2003 - 2022年）、大规模（美国大陆）数据集。我们首先通过填补缺口和平滑处理对孢子数据进行预处理。之后，我们提取了10个指标，用于描述真菌孢子季节的物候（例如，季节开始和结束）和强度（例如，峰值浓度和积分）。这些指标是使用两种互补但并非相互排斥的方法——生态方法和公共卫生方法得出的，分别定义为总孢子浓度的百分位数和孢子浓度的致敏阈值。使用线性混合效应模型，我们量化了美国大陆这些指标的年度变化。我们发现，在二十年的时间里，无论是生态方法（11天，95%置信区间：0.4 - 23天）还是公共卫生方法（22天，6 - 38天）定义的孢子季节开始时间都有显著提前。与此同时，年度周期和孢子过敏季节中的总孢子浓度随时间趋于下降。孢子季节提前开始与气候变量显著相关，如气温升高和降水变化。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明可能存在气候驱动的真菌孢子季节提前现象，凸显了在公共卫生决策中减缓气候变化和适应气候变化的重要性。
