Agenda

Elena Innocente, DAIS

Abstract:
Recently atmospheric studies are not focused only on chemical composition of aerosol, but there is an increasing attention on the biological fraction of aerosol, commonly named bioaerosol. Today is well know that bacteria associated to particulate matter can be pathogenic and have potential harmful effects on human health: in fact, it is now recognized that bioaerosol can have a great impact as direct cause of disease or infection. In this view, the new goal in atmospheric sciences is the integration of “traditional chemical based” approach on aerosol studies and the studies of bioaerosol. The existing gap of knowledge in bioaerosol studies doesn’t allow a more exhaustive comprehension of atmospheric biogeochemical cycle, because is demonstrated that airborne bacteria play a role in catalyzing aerosol chemical reaction and act as ice and cloud condensation nuclei. The aim of this study is to integrate chemical data, bacteria information and meteorological parameters to understand their relationship and to evaluate chemical composition and bacterial community variation over different seasons and different meteorological conditions. In order to investigate a potential relation between elemental composition and Bacteria in air particulate matter, a redundancy discriminate analysis (RDA), was performed. Subsequently the composition of bacterial communities and their correlation with seasons and meteorological conditions (e.g. wind speed and direction,) was investigated in order to define a possible influence of meteorology on bacterial community variability.