An Investigation of Fungal Aerobiopollutants in the Ambient Air Over Maize Fields

The present investigation was carried out to understand the qualitative and quantitative incidence of fungal aerobiopollutants over maize. Environmental monitoring was carried out by operating continuous volumetric Tilak air sampler, which gave continuous air sampling for atmospheric aerobiopollutants. Apart from dust particles, altogether 44 types of aerobiopollutants were trapped in the sampler of which 39 belonged to fungal spore types. From these, 25 belonged to Deuteromycotina, 9 to Ascomycotina, 2 to Basidiomycotina, 2 to Mastigomycotina and 1 to Zygomycotina, while remaining 5 types belonged to non-fungal spore groups of other types. Aerobiopollutants obtained peak in the month of February with 29582/m³ of air and 37.7 spore percentages, when there was a record of 4.6 mm rainfall, average temperature of 21.3°C and 54.6% relative humidity. The pathogenic and allergenic nature of aerobiopollutants is discussed, and influence of meteorological parameters on these spore types is presented in this paper.