Arabitol, mannitol, and glucose as tracers of primary biogenic organic aerosol: the influence of environmental factors on ambient air concentrations and spatial distribution over France

Abstract

The primary sugar compounds (SCs, defined as glucose, arabitol, and mannitol) are widely recognized as suitable molecular markers to characterize and apportion primary biogenic organic aerosol emission sources. This work improves our understanding of the spatial behavior and distribution of these chemical species and evidences their major effective environmental drivers. We conducted a large study focusing on the daily (24 h) PM 10 SC concentrations for 16 increasing space scale sites (local to nationwide), over at least 1 complete year. These sites are distributed in several French geographic areas of different environmental conditions. Our analyses, mainly based on the examination of the short-term evolutions of SC concentrations, clearly show distance-dependent correlations. SC concentration evolutions are highly synchronous at an urban city scale and remain well correlated throughout the same geographic re-Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 11014A. Samaké et al.: Arabitol, mannitol, and glucose as tracers of primary biogenic organic aerosol gions, even if the sites are situated in different cities. However, sampling sites located in two distinct geographic areas are poorly correlated. Such a pattern indicates that the processes responsible for the evolution of the atmospheric SC concentrations present a spatial homogeneity over typical areas of at least tens of kilometers. Local phenomena, such as the resuspension of topsoil and associated microbiota, do no account for the major emissions processes of SC in urban areas not directly influenced by agricultural activities. The concentrations of SC and cellulose display remarkably synchronous temporal evolution cycles at an urban site in Grenoble, indicating a common source ascribed to vegetation. Additionally, higher concentrations of SC at another site located in a crop field region occur during each harvest periods, indicating resuspension processes of plant materials (crop detritus, leaf debris) and associated microbiota for agricultural and nearby urbanized areas. Finally, ambient air temperature, relative humidity, and vegetation density constitute the main effective drivers of SC atmospheric concentrations.

Molecular markers of biomass burning and primary biological aerosols in urban Beijing: Size distribution and seasonal variation

“…Burege (2002) found that fungal spores in the atmosphere exist predominantly in the size range of 2-10 μm. Previous studies also found similar results that mannitol mainly occurs in the coarse size fraction (Carvalho et al, 2003;Graham et al, 2003;Samaké et al, 2019). The relative contribution decreased in the smaller size ranges and presented summer privilege over https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2019-841 Preprint.…”

“…Primary biological aerosol particles (PBAP) and biomass burning (BB) are two major source of atmospheric primary organic aerosols (POA). PBAPs those are directly emitted into the atmosphere include bacteria, plant debris, fungal spores, fragments of plants and animals (Després et al, 2012;Fang et al, 2018;Fu et al, 2012;O'dowd et al, 2004;Samaké et al, 2019).…”

“…Sucrose, glucose and fructose are predominantly derived from plant materials, such as pollen, fruit, and leaves (Pacini, 2000;Puxbaum and Tenze-Kunit, 2003). Mannitol, arabitol, and trehalose have been recognized as tracers of airborne fungi (Bauer et al, 2008;Fu et al, 2016;Samaké et al, 2019;Verma et al, 2018).…”

Seasonal Variations and Chemical Predictors of Oxidative Potential (OP) of Particulate Matter (PM), for Seven Urban French Sites

“…In addition, polyols have been quantified and used to trace primary biogenic emissions (PBOA), but additional and complementary markers such as cellulose were not included in this study, while their mass contribution to the PM [85,86] and their role on OP [87] can be significant. Thus, in summer and winter, with SOA from biomass burning emissions, the implication of SOA and PBOA on the measured OP levels cannot be ruled out.…”

Answer to Anonymous Referee #2 comments

“…The reviewer is correct that other sources, including biomass burning and the ocean, have sometimes been proposed as potential emitters of SCs (Yang et al, 2012). How-C2 ever, recent studies conducted at several sites across France have shown a weak correlation between daily concentrations of SC and levoglucosan in PM2.5 and PM10 collected throughout the year (Golly et al, 2018;Samaké et al, 2019a). In the present study, there was no significant correlation between primary sugar species and levoglucosan, a tracer of biomass burning, in our PM10 time series.…”