Ocean Aerobiology

Abstract

Ocean aerobiology is defined here as the study of biological particles of marine origin, including living organisms, present in the atmosphere and their role in ecological, biogeochemical, and climate processes. Hundreds of trillions of microorganisms are exchanged between ocean and atmosphere daily. Within a few days, tropospheric transport potentially disperses microorganisms over continents and between oceans. There is a need to better identify and quantify marine aerobiota, characterize the time spans and distances of marine microorganisms’ atmospheric transport, and determine whether microorganisms acclimate to atmospheric conditions and remain viable, or even grow. Exploring the atmosphere as a microbial habitat is fundamental for understanding the consequences of dispersal and will expand our knowledge of biodiversity, biogeography, and ecosystem connectivity across different marine environments. Marine organic matter is chemically transformed in the atmosphere, including remineralization back to CO2. The magnitude of these transformations is insignificant in the context of the annual marine carbon cycle, but may be a significant sink for marine recalcitrant organic matter over long (∼104 years) timescales. In addition, organic matter in sea spray aerosol plays a significant role in the Earth’s radiative budget by scattering solar radiation, and indirectly by affecting cloud properties. Marine organic matter is generally a poor source of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), but a significant source of ice nucleating particles (INPs), affecting the formation of mixed-phase and ice clouds. This review will show that marine biogenic aerosol plays an impactful, but poorly constrained, role in marine ecosystems, biogeochemical processes, and the Earth’s climate system. Further work is needed to characterize the connectivity and feedbacks between the atmosphere and ocean ecosystems in order to integrate this complexity into Earth System models, facilitating future climate and biogeochemical predictions.

Evolutionary Relationships, Phylogeographic Patterns, and a Hypothesis for Air- and Sea-driven Global Spread of Chromoblastomycosis by Etiological Fonsecaea Agents

“…Almost 90% of storms form within 20° north or south of the equator (Britannica, 2022;National Hurricane Center and Central Paci c Hurricane Center National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2022), and CBM is also endemic in this region (Queiroz-Telles et al, 2017;Santos et al, 2021). Notably, the ndings of DeLeon-Rodriguez et al, (2013) (DeLeon-Rodriguez et al, 2013 suggested that fogging of large fungal spore communities occurs during tropical hurricanes, and airborne fungi may remain viable after being carried aloft (Alsante et al, 2021;Mayer et al, 2020), where long-distance, transcontinental and even oceanic transport occurs. The fungal microbiota is a dynamic and underappreciated aspect of the lower oceanic layer, and the extensive ooding after mega-hurricanes can create ideal conditions (Barbeau et al, 2010) for the growth of molds such as Fonsecaea spp.…”

Relative viability proxy of airborne prokaryotic microorganisms at the Southeastern Mediterranean coastal Sea

“…Currently, we cannot state which bacterial phylotypes remained viable during atmospheric transport and were actively growing or involved in specific cellular pathways. This question could be investigated by sequencing efforts of the airborne ribosomal 16S RNA transcripts as well as other specific genes of interest (Alsante et al, 2021). One such gene could be nifH as airborne diazotrophs are routinely found in dust samples (Foster et al, 2009), which, in turn, may fix N 2 upon deposition in seawater (Rahav et al, 2018).…”

“…The low levels of the relatively viability proxy during the dust event may be attributed to anthropogenic inhibitors carried by the dust, mainly metals and organic pollutants. Thus, transport time, the presence of pollutants and the chemical reactions on surface particles during the dust event probably impacted the microbial viability, yet further research is needed to assess how physical and chemical microhabitats impacts microorganism functionality (Alsante et al, 2021). Moreover, given the acidic conditions in the atmosphere and clouds (Pye et al, 2020), trace-metals leachability and thus potential toxicity may increase (Koçak et al, 2007).…”

“…Evidently, atmospheric aerosols contain bacteria, archaea, algae, viruses, fungi, and pollen originating from land (Kellogg and Griffin, 2006;Griffin et al, 2007) or the ocean (Prospero et al, 2005;Flores et al, 2020). Airborne microorganisms were identified in almost every aerosol sample collected over aquatic and terrestrial environments (Leck and Bigg, 2005;Favet et al, 2013;Yahya et al, 2019), usually ranging from ~10 3 to ~10 7 cells per m 3 of air (Mayol et al, 2017;Rahav et al, 2019;Alsante et al, 2021), and were shown to contribute to bacterial production, primary production, N 2 fixation and viral infections (Peter et al, 2014;Rahav et al, 2018;Rahav et al, 2020). Understanding the parameters that determine the survival of airborne microorganisms is of great ecological significance and may shed light on microbial dispersion throughout the world's oceans.…”

Heads in the clouds: marine viruses disperse bidirectionally along the natural water cycle

“…Virus aerosolization from the SML was previously studied 15,30,33 , but investigations pursuing metagenomic approaches to explore the virioneuston and its aerosolization in the field are lacking. A recent review highlighted the need to quantify marine aerobiota, to characterize the spatial-temporal dimensions of dispersal, and to understand acclimations of marine microorganisms to atmospheric conditions 34 . Once airborne, viruses could even fulfill other functions as recently suggested 35 : Airborne marine viruses could serve as ice-nucleating particles (INP), a function already described for many microorganisms 36,37 , and act as catalysts to mediate freezing at temperatures warmer than - 10 °C.…”