Plant flowers transmit various bio-agents through air

作者：Siyu XU,Maosheng YAO

摘要：Growing air pollution,known as"April snow",by fluffy catkins from plant flowering was frequently observed during the Spring time in China.Current efforts mainly focus on controlling catkin release,while their public health and environmental impacts are unknown.Here,using culturing,microscopic and sequence methods we found that the flying catkins carry a significant amount of bio-agents(bacteria,fungal,viruses,and pollens),e.g.,up to 6.33×10^4 bacterial and 7.46×10^5 fungal cells per catkin.Abundant pollens from plants were also found riding on the flying catkins.For collected fluffy catkins,bacterial Paracoccus,Massilia,fungal Ophiocordyceps,Arthrocladiella,pollen Robina,Pickeringia,Pinus,and viral family Genomoviridae,to name a few,were found to be dominant.With infection and allergic potentials,the detected microbial structures on the fluffy catkins were different from those of local air,varying from one location to another.Being not just white pollution,flying plant fluffy catkins were discovered here also acting as a cloud of biological agents,and further actions need to be taken urgently to understand and limit their environmental and ecological consequences.

发文机构：State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control

关键词：PlantfloweringFlyingfluffycatkinsBio-agentsTransmissionAirpollution

分类号： R122.7[医药卫生—环境卫生学]X51[医药卫生—公共卫生与预防医学]