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Zusammenfassung:
Fungal spores play important role in the health of humans, animals, and
plants by constituting a class of the primary biological aerosol
particles (PBAPs). Additionally, these could mediate the hydrological
cycle by acting as nuclei for ice and cloud formation (IN and CCN
respectively). Various processes in the biosphere and the variations in
the meteorological conditions control the releasing mechanism of spores
through active wet and dry discharge. In the present paper, we simulate
the concentration of fungal spores over the Indian region during three
distinct meteorological seasons by combining a numerical model
(WRF-Chem) with the fungal spore emissions based on land-use type.
Maiden high-resolution regional simulations revealed large spatial
gradient and strong seasonal dependence in the concentration of fungal
spores over the Indian region. The fungal spore concentrations are found
to be the highest during winter (0-70 mu g m(-3) in December),
moderately higher during summer (0-35 mu g m(-3) in May) and lowest
during the monsoon (0-25 mu g m(-3) in July). The elevated
concentrations during winter are attributed to the shallower boundary
layer trapping the emitted fungal spores in smaller volume. In contrast,
the deeper boundary layer mixing in May and stronger
monsoonal-convection in July distribute the fungal spores throughout the
lower troposphere (similar to 5 km). We suggest that the higher fungal
spore concentrations during winter could have potential health impacts.
While, stronger vertical mixing could enable fungal spores to influence
the cloud formation during summer and monsoon. Our study provides the
first information about the distribution and seasonal variation of
fungal spores over the densely populated and observationally sparse
Indian region. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
