Fungi diversity in PM<sub>2. 5</sub> and PM<sub>1</sub> at the summit of Mt. Tai: abundance, size distribution, and seasonal variation

Xu, Caihong; Wei, Min; Chen, Jianmin; Zhu, Chao; Li, Jiarong; Lv, Ganglin; Xu, Xianmang; Zheng, Lulu; Sui, Guodong; Li, Weijun; Chen, Bing; Wang, Wenxing; Zhang, Qingzhu; Ding, Aijun; Mellouki, Abdelwahid

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-11247-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 18

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-11247-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Regional transport and transformation of air pollution in...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-11247-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 18

Research article

|

22 Sep 2017

Research article |

| 22 Sep 2017

Fungi diversity in PM_2. 5 and PM₁ at the summit of Mt. Tai: abundance, size distribution, and seasonal variation

Caihong Xu, Min Wei, Jianmin Chen, Chao Zhu, Jiarong Li, Ganglin Lv, Xianmang Xu, Lulu Zheng, Guodong Sui, Weijun Li, Bing Chen, Wenxing Wang, Qingzhu Zhang, Aijun Ding, and Abdelwahid Mellouki

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Sep 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 29 Mar 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review for acp-2017-204', Anonymous Referee #1, 30 Mar 2017
- AC1: 'acp-2017-204-RC1-Response to Reviewer #1', Jianmin Chen, 14 Apr 2017
  - RC3: 'Comments on Xu et al. acp-2017-204', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Apr 2017
RC2: 'Xu et al's work about fungal diversity in PM1 and PM2.5', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Apr 2017
- AC2: 'acp-2017-204-RC2-Response to Reviewer #2', Jianmin Chen, 14 Apr 2017
AC3: 'acp-2017-204-Response to RC3', Jianmin Chen, 17 May 2017
- RC4: 'Comment on the response by Xu et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 May 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Jianmin Chen on behalf of the Authors (02 Jun 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (27 Jun 2017) by Tong Zhu

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (18 Jul 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Studies have revealed an essential role that atmospheric biological particles play in the development and evolution of the Earth environment. However, observational data on the particles are very limited. This study focused on fungi, one of the major groups of biological particles in the atmosphere, at an elevated site in the north China plain and reported the abundance, size dependence and seasonal differences. The data reported in this paper can improve the current understanding on the situation of bioaerosols in elevated levels and are very helpful to studies on the regional transport of fungi over the East Asia. I suggest the accept of this manuscript for publication after two revisions relevant to the comments raised by previous reviewers.

(1) The authors need to clearly give the meaning of PM2.5 and PM1 they used in this study in METHOD (for example, by showing the details of the samplers) and in ABSTRACT. As described in the manuscript, the samplers they used to collect the samples were inertial impactors. With such impactors, particles smaller than a certain aerodynamic size could not be trapped by the collection filters. So the samples of what the authors called PM2.5 and PM1 corresponded to size ranges of 2.5 - ? um, and 1.0-? um, respectively. That means the PM2.5 and PM1 in this study are different from the general definition of PM2.5 and PM1. I guess this is also the reason for the results that the concentration of fungi in PM1 was sometimes larger than the concentration in PM2.5. This is because a particle of geometric diameter larger than 1.0 um might have an aerodynamic diameter smaller than 1.0 um. The fungi in this study were likely the case. Particle bounce is usually small on quartz filters, unless the particles are much larger than the gaps or holes between quartz fibers on the filter surface.

(2) The authors need to give the DNA extraction efficiency in subsection 2.2. The major contribution of this study is the quantification of fungi in the air. Quantifying the fungi is different from the identification of the fungi presence. If the efficiency is unknown, the concentrations reported in the paper are not referentially meaningful and hardly compared with other studies. I know it is hard to give an exact efficiency. However, the efficiency or at least the merits and limits of the extraction method used in this study, in comparison with methods in other studies, should be described.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (20 Jul 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Primary biological aerosol particles (PBAPs), including pollen, bacteria, fungi, are the important component of ambient particles in atmosphere. PBAPs not only play unique role in global climate change, but also take negative effects on human health. As one important species, fungi (with big size, coarse particles) could eject their spore (with smaller sizes, fine or ultrafine particles) with aqueous jets into atmosphere and therefore bring more public health concerns. This manuscript focuses on fungal distribution in PM10 and PM2.5 collected in Mountain Tai. Cutting-edge methods (such as sequence analyses) were employed to deterimine species of fungal, and especially, the authors calcualte fungal contribution to the ambient OC.
Generally speaking, the authors could give the aim of their study and design their experiment carefully and describe their results clearly. The reviewer believes this manuscript is of the interest for the readers of ACP and therefore suggests it can be considered for publication before the authors pay attention on the following minor problems:
1. Plesase consider the implication of the allergenic or pathogenic fungal in the discussion as a indenpent section.The author mentioned the health problems in the section 3.3
2. Could the authors please give explanation why you have not gotten surface ground samples, becuase you compared the data in mountain Tai with that in Korea, Austria...... The reviewer think fungal distribution at different height of the Mt. Tai must be more interesting.
3. in the page 10 line 35, ”differ” should be ”difference”. And the conclusion could be more concise if the first sentence ” Information about ........” was deleted.

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ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (24 Jul 2017) by Tong Zhu

AR by Jianmin Chen on behalf of the Authors (28 Jul 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (16 Aug 2017) by Tong Zhu

AR by Jianmin Chen on behalf of the Authors (17 Aug 2017) Manuscript

Short summary

Fungi are ubiquitous throughout the near-surface atmosphere, where they represent an important component of primary biological aerosol particles. The diversity and composition of the fungal communities varied over the different seasons between the fine (PM_2.5) and submicron (PM₁) particles at the summit of Mt. Tai located in the North China Plain, China. This work may serve as an important reference for the fungal contribution to primary biological aerosol particles.

Fungi diversity in PM2. 5 and PM1 at the summit of Mt. Tai: abundance, size distribution, and seasonal variation

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Fungi diversity in PM_2. 5 and PM₁ at the summit of Mt. Tai: abundance, size distribution, and seasonal variation