European pollen reanalysis, 1980-2022, for alder, birch, and olive.

The dataset presents a 43 year-long reanalysis of pollen seasons for three major allergenic genera of trees in Europe: alder (Alnus), birch (Betula), and olive (Olea). Driven by the meteorological reanalysis ERA5, the atmospheric composition model SILAM predicted the flowering period and calculated the Europe-wide dispersion pattern of pollen for the years 1980-2022. The model applied an extended 4-dimensional variational data assimilation of in-situ observations of aerobiological networks in 34 European countries to reproduce the inter-annual variability and trends of pollen production and distribution.

Assessing allergy risk from ornamental trees in a city: Integrating open access remote sensing data with pollen measurements.

Platanus sp. pl. (plane trees) are common ornamental tree in Poland that produces a large amount of wind-transported pollen, which contains proteins that induce allergy symptoms.

A temporally and spatially explicit, data-driven estimation of airborne ragweed pollen concentrations across Europe.

Ongoing and future climate change driven expansion of aeroallergen-producing plant species comprise a major human health problem across Europe and elsewhere. There is an urgent need to produce accurate, temporally dynamic maps at the continental level, especially in the context of climate uncertainty. This study aimed to restore missing daily ragweed pollen data sets for Europe, to produce phenological maps of ragweed pollen, resulting in the most complete and detailed high-resolution ragweed pollen concentration maps to date.

Outdoor airborne allergens: Characterization, behavior and monitoring in Europe.

Aeroallergens or inhalant allergens, are proteins dispersed through the air and have the potential to induce allergic conditions such as rhinitis, conjunctivitis, and asthma. Outdoor aeroallergens are found predominantly in pollen grains and fungal spores, which are allergen carriers. Aeroallergens from pollen and fungi have seasonal emission patterns that correlate with plant pollination and fungal sporulation and are strongly associated with atmospheric weather conditions.

Towards European automatic bioaerosol monitoring: Comparison of 9 automatic pollen observational instruments with classic Hirst-type traps.

To benefit allergy patients and the medical practitioners, pollen information should be available in both a reliable and timely manner; the latter is only recently possible due to automatic monitoring. To evaluate the performance of all currently available automatic instruments, an international intercomparison campaign was jointly organised by the EUMETNET AutoPollen Programme and the ADOPT COST Action in Munich, Germany (March-July 2021). The automatic systems (hardware plus identification algorithms) were compared with manual Hirst-type traps.

Alternaria spore exposure in Bavaria, Germany, measured using artificial intelligence algorithms in a network of BAA500 automatic pollen monitors.

Although Alternaria spores are well-known allergenic fungal spores, automatic bioaerosol recognition systems have not been trained to recognize these particles until now. Here we report the development of a new algorithm able to classify Alternaria spores with BAA500 automatic bioaerosol monitors. The best validation score was obtained when the model was trained on both data from the original dataset and artificially generated images, with a validation unweighted mean Intersection over Union (IoU), also called Jaccard Index, of 0.

Real-time automatic detection of starch particles in ambient air.

Considerable amounts of starch granules can be present in the atmosphere from both natural and anthropogenic sources. The aim of this study is to investigate the variability and potential origin of starch granules in ambient air recorded at six cities situated in a region with dominantly agricultural land use. This is achieved by using a combination of laser spectroscopy bioaerosol measurements with 1 min temporal resolution, traditional volumetric Hirst type bioaerosol sampling and atmospheric modelling.

Why should we care about high temporal resolution monitoring of bioaerosols in ambient air?

This is the first time that atmospheric concentrations of individual pollen types have been recorded by an automatic sampler with 1-hour and sub-hourly resolution (i.e. 1-minute and 1-second data).

Bioaerosols on the atmospheric super highway: An example of long distance transport of Alternaria spores from the Pannonian Plain to Poland.

Alternaria spores are pathogenic to agricultural crops, and the longest and the most severe sporulation seasons are predominantly recorded in rural areas, e.g. the Pannonian Plain (PP) in South-Central Europe.

High Ambrosia pollen concentrations in Poland respecting the long distance transport (LDT).

High Ambrosia pollen concentrations in Poland rather rarely come from the local sources. The aim of this study was to define the temporal and spatial differences of the high Ambrosia pollen concentrations by creating models for the pollen transport from the distant sources. This study was thought to determine the direction of the air masses inflow into Poland, carrying Ambrosia pollen, from areas of the bordering countries with the pollen concentrations higher than iSTOTEN_n Poland.

Particle size distribution of the major Alternaria alternata allergen, Alt a 1, derived from airborne spores and subspore fragments.

Fungal fragments are abundant immunoreactive bioaerosols that may outnumber the concentrations of intact spores in the air. To investigate the importance of Alternaria fragments as sources of allergens compared to Alternaria spores, we determined the levels of Alternaria spores and Alt a 1 (the major allergen in Alternaria alternata spores) collected on filters within three fractions of particulate matter (PM) of different aerodynamic diameter: (1) PM, (diameter>10 μm); (2) PM (2.5-10μm); (3) PM (0.

Atmospheric exposure to the major Artemisia pollen allergen (Art v 1): Seasonality, impact of weather, and clinical implications.

Artemisia pollen grains are important aeroallergens worldwide. The amount of allergenic proteins produced by pollen, or pollen allergenicity, is regulated by both genes and the environment. As a result, even closely related plant taxa may release pollen with distinctly different allergen contents.

Concomitant occurrence of anthropogenic air pollutants, mineral dust and fungal spores during long-distance transport of ragweed pollen.

Large-scale synoptic conditions are able to transport considerable amounts of airborne particles over entire continents by creating substantial air mass movement. This phenomenon is observed in Europe in relation to highly allergenic ragweed (Ambrosia L.) pollen grains that are transported from populations in Central Europe (mainly the Pannonian Plain and Balkans) to the North.

Detecting distant sources of airborne pollen for Poland: Integrating back-trajectory and dispersion modelling with a satellite-based phenology.

Airborne pollen might be transported over thousands of kilometres, which has important ecological, evolutionary and clinical consequences. The long-distance transport (LDT) of birch (Betula sp.) pollen has been described in detail for northern Europe.

Predicting the onset of Betula pendula flowering in Poznań (Poland) using remote sensing thermal data.

Due to the urban heat island effect, the time of plant pollination might markedly vary within the area of a city. However, existing pollen forecasts do not reflect the spatial variations in the pollen release time within a heterogeneous urban environment. The main objective of this study was to model the spatial pattern of flowering onset (and thus the moment of pollen release) in silver birch (Betula pendula Roth.

Temporal variability in the allergenicity of airborne Alternaria spores.

The concentration of fungal spores in the air is traditionally considered as a proxy of allergen exposure. However, in vitro experiments have shown that the allergenicity of Alternaria spores varies depending on ecophysiological and developmental factors. Despite the potential clinical significance of these findings, it has never been verified in outdoor environments.

Cross-sensitization to and pollen allergens in an area located outside of the current distribution range of .

Introduction: The role of long-distance transported (LDT) pollen in inducing new sensitization and affecting sensitization rates in -sensitized patients is unclear.

Aim: The aim of this study was to estimate the degree of cross-sensitization to a allergens in citizens of Poznan (Western Poland). This area is covered by extensive populations but does not currently have local populations.

Masting in wind-pollinated trees: system-specific roles of weather and pollination dynamics in driving seed production.

Masting, the highly variable production of synchronized large seed crops, is a common reproductive strategy in plant populations. In wind-pollinated trees, flowering and pollination dynamics are hypothesized to provide the mechanistic link for the well-known relationship between weather and population-level seed production. Several hypotheses make predictions about the effect of weather on annual pollination success.

Co-occurrence of Artemisia and Ambrosia pollen seasons against the background of the synoptic situations in Poland.

The Asteraceae family is one of the largest families, comprising 67 genera and 264 species in Poland. However, only a few genera, including Artemisia and Ambrosia are potential allergenic sources. The aim of the study was to estimate how often and to what degree Artemisia and Ambrosia pollen seasons co-occur intensifying human health risk, and how synoptic situations influence frequency of days with high pollen concentrations of both taxa.

Flowering phenology and potential pollen emission of three species in relation to airborne pollen data in Poznań (Western Poland).

pollen is an important allergen in Europe. In Poznań (Western Poland), three species, , and , are widely distributed. However, the contributions of these species to the total airborne pollen are unknown.

Risk of exposure to airborne Ambrosia pollen from local and distant sources in Europe - an example from Denmark.

Background: Ambrosia artemisiifolia L. is a noxious invasive alien species in Europe. It is an important aeroallergen and millions of people are exposed to its pollen.

Arcella peruviana sp. nov. (Amoebozoa: Arcellinida, Arcellidae), a new species from a tropical peatland in Amazonia.

There has only been one study on the ecology of testate amoebae from Amazonian peatlands, despite Amazonia being a biodiversity hotspot of global importance. During analysis of litter samples from Aucayacu peatland, western (Peruvian) Amazonia, we discovered a testate amoeba with a distinct morphology unlike any other species reported previously. We describe a new species, Arcella peruviana, based on its distinct morphology, compare it to morphologically similar species and provide information about its ecology.

Variation of the group 5 grass pollen allergen content of airborne pollen in relation to geographic location and time in season.

Background: Allergies to grass pollen are the number one cause of outdoor hay fever. The human immune system reacts with symptoms to allergen from pollen.

Objective: We investigated the natural variability in release of the major group 5 allergen from grass pollen across Europe.