Spatiotemporal models for predicting high pollen concentration level of Corylus, Alnus, and Betula

Abstract

Corylus, Alnus, and Betula trees are among the most important sources of allergic pollen in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere and have a large impact on the quality of life and productivity of allergy sufferers. Therefore, it is important to predict high pollen concentrations, both in time and space. The aim of this study was to create and evaluate spatiotemporal models for predicting high Corylus, Alnus, and Betula pollen concentration levels, based on gridded meteorological data. Aerobiological monitoring was carried out in 11 cities in Poland and gathered, depending on the site, between 2 and 16 years of measurements. According to the first allergy symptoms during exposure, a high pollen count level was established for each taxon. An optimizing probability threshold technique was used for mitigation of the problem of imbalance in the pollen concentration levels. For each taxon, the model was built using a random forest method. The study revealed the possibility of moderately reliable prediction of Corylus and highly reliable prediction of Alnus and Betula high pollen concentration levels, using preprocessed gridded meteorological data. Cumulative growing degree days and potential evaporation proved to be two of the most important predictor variables in the models. The final models predicted not only for single locations but also for continuous areas. Furthermore, the proposed modeling framework could be used to predict high pollen concentrations of Corylus, Alnus, Betula, and other taxa, and in other countries.

Plant Responses to Climate Change: The Case Study of Betulaceae and Poaceae Pollen Seasons (Northern Italy, Vignola, Emilia-Romagna)

“…Surprisingly, this occurs in two widespread tree/shrub meso-hygrophilous genera – Alnus and Corylus – that therefore result less warmth-tolerance than other plants such as birch. This is partly in contrast with Central European models built by gridding meteorological/pollen data and by using them as predictor variables to build a model of high Alnus , Corylus , and Betula pollen concentration levels for spatially continuous areas of 11 cities in Poland [42]. In that research, the maximum range of the Corylus pollen season was 6–150 days of the year, 14–145 days for Alnus , and 35–164 days for Betula (calculated using the 99% method).…”

Reconstruction of late spring phenophases in Poland and their response to climate change, 1951–2014

“…Accumulated GDDs were calculated by adding the specific daily GDD values starting from the beginning of the year. If the daily maximum temperature was not higher than the threshold value, then the GDD value did not change [28].…”

The influence of atmospheric circulation conditions on Betula and Alnus pollen concentrations in Wrocław, Poland

“…The release of tree pollen is determined by several factors that include the time of the day, biological and meteorological parameters such as progress into the pollen season, temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed (Nowosad 2015). Both the initiation and magnitude of the daily pollen release mostly depend on daily temperatures.…”