General decline in the diversity of the airborne microbiota under future climatic scenarios

Abstract

Microorganisms attached to aerosols can travel intercontinental distances, survive, and further colonize remote environments. Airborne microbes are influenced by environmental and climatic patterns that are predicted to change in the near future, with unknown consequences. We developed a new predictive method that dynamically addressed the temporal evolution of biodiversity in response to environmental covariates, linked to future climatic scenarios of the IPCC (AR5). We fitted these models against a 7-year monitoring of airborne microbes, collected in wet depositions. We found that Bacteria were more influenced by climatic variables than by aerosols sources, while the opposite was detected for Eukarya. Also, model simulations showed a general decline in bacterial richness, idiosyncratic responses of Eukarya, and changes in seasonality, with higher intensity within the worst-case climatic scenario (RCP 8.5). Additionally, the model predicted lower richness for airborne potential eukaryotic (fungi) pathogens of plants and humans. Our work pioneers on the potential effects of environmental variability on the airborne microbiome under the uncertain context of climate change.

Challenges and opportunities: A case study from a European city shows the influence of biological work on bioaerosol formation from indoor biological wastewater treatment laboratory

“…(2021), developed a predictive method that dynamically addressed the temporal evolution of biodiversity in response to environmental covariates, linked to future climatic scenarios. They discovered microbiota general decline in airborne microbiota diversity under future climatic conditions (Ontiveros et al, 2021). They emphasized unravelling air microbiota composition.…”

Microbial ecology of the atmosphere

“…A recent modelling study suggests that overall microbial diversity in the atmosphere may decline under future climate scenarios and this may severely impact ecosystem connectivity and function (Ontiveros et al . 2021 ). Conversely, the magnitude of emissions may increase due to the effects of climate-change forcing or pollution, e.g.…”

Understanding stochastic and deterministic assembly processes in microbial communities along temporal, spatial and environmental scales

“…In addition, the lack of intensive temporal surveys makes it very difficult to study how these processes influence community temporal dynamics. In this sense, the development and application of novel dynamic approaches would be very welcome (Ontiveros, Cáliz, et al, 2021; Ontiveros, Capitán, et al, 2021).…”