Spatio-temporal diversity of biological aerosols over Northeast India: a metagenomic approach

Northeast India is considered as one of the major biodiversity hotspots in the world, but the region is underexplored for their microbial biodiversity. Extensive characterization of biological aerosol (bioaerosol) samples collected from various locations of Northeast India was carried out for all fo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science and pollution research international 2022-09, Vol.29 (42), p.64096-64111
Main Authors: Pathak, Binita, Khataniar, Ankita, Das, Barlin, Upadhyaya, Sristisri, Medhi, Ankita, Bhuyan, Pradip Kumar, Buragohain, Alak Kumar, Borah, Debajit
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerosols
Aerosols - analysis
Aquatic Pollution
Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution
Bacilli
Bacteria
Bacteria - genetics
Bioaerosols
Biodiversity
Biodiversity hot spots
Debris
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Earth and Environmental Science
Ecotoxicology
Environment
Environmental Chemistry
Environmental Health
Environmental Monitoring
Environmental science
Fungi
Geographical distribution
India
Metagenome
Metagenomics
Microorganisms
Monsoons
Particulate Matter
Research Article
Seasons
Spatial distribution
Spores
Temporal distribution
Thorax
Waste Water Technology
Water Management
Water Pollution Control
Wind
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Northeast India is considered as one of the major biodiversity hotspots in the world, but the region is underexplored for their microbial biodiversity. Extensive characterization of biological aerosol (bioaerosol) samples collected from various locations of Northeast India was carried out for all four seasons in a year. These were characterized in terms of their constituents, such as pollens, fungal spores, animal debris, and non-biological components, and particulate matters, such as inhalable, thoracic, and alveolic, and finally, the bacterial diversity was determined by DNA-based metagenomic approach. The non-biological (non-viable) component of aerosols is found to vary from 30 to 89% in the pre-monsoon season, which coexists with pollens (4–20%), animal debris (1–24%), and fungal spores (1–17%). The highest number of culturable microbial populations in terms of CFU count was observed in the pre-monsoon samples (i.e., 125.24–632.45 CFU/m 3 ), and the lowest CFU was observed in monsoon season (i.e., 20.83–319.0 CFU/m 3 ). The metagenomic approach with the samples collected during pre-monsoon season showed a total of bacterial 184 OTUs (operational taxonomic units) with 28,028 abundance count comprising 7 major phylum, 6 classes, 10 orders, 15 families, 13 genus, and 8 species of bacteria. The species-level distribution clearly shows the presence of Gammaproteobacteria (52%) most abundantly, followed by Bacilli (21%), Alphaproteobacteria (14%), Betaproteobacteria (5%), Flavobacteria (5%), and Sphingobacteria (3%). It is the first report from the entire Northeast India to uncover spatio-temporal distribution of biological components and bacterial diversity in aerosol samples through a DNA-based metagenomic approach. Graphical abstract
ISSN:0944-1344
1614-7499
DOI:10.1007/s11356-022-20323-w