Fungi in Air Over the Atlantic Ocean

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Abstract
SUMMARY Exposures were made over the Atlantic Ocean on two transatlantic flights in June and August, 1951, from Montreal to London and return, using the McGill-GE, slit, and filter samplers. Nutrient plates were exposed in the McGill-GE sampler and plates and silicone slides in the slit sampler. Dilution plates were made from the filters. Cladosporium was the commonest fungus, comprising 4108 (82.3%) of the total. Nonsporulating, Alternaria, Pullularia, yeasts, Penicillium, Botrytis, and Stemphylium constituted 3.2, 2.6, 2.3, 2.1, 1.6, 1.5 and 1.1% of the total colonies. The following eighteen additional genera were present: Popularia, Fusarium, Actinomycetes (Streptomyces), Aspergillus, Oospora, Phoma, Helminthosporium, Cephalothecium, Zythia, Trichoderma, Verticillium, Spicaria, Sporormia, Nigrospora, Cephalosporium, Sphaeronema, Coniothyrium, and Chaetomium. Quantitatively the fungi were determined on a cubic foot basis. Cladosporium in polar air ranged from 0.01 to 0.1 per cubic foot with the McGill-GE sampler and 0.14 to 2.4 per cubic foot with the slit sampler; in tropical air numbers were higher, reaching 7.8 per cubic foot in one air mass over the western Atlantic. Cladosporium herbarum was the commonest species. C. cladosporioides and C. macrocarpum were found occasionally. The remaining genera were less than one per cubic foot. Fungus spores were determined from silicone slides exposed in the slit sampler. The number varied from 0.2 per cubic foot in polar air to 529 per cubic foot in modified tropical air. Cladosporium spores were most abundant, having concentrations up to 9.0 per cubic foot. In general, the same fungi were obtained on the slides as on the plates except for smuts. Chlamydospores of the Ustilago type were found on all but 7 slides with a high in 4.5 per cubic foot in tropical air near Iceland. Many of the fungus spores were in clusters or groups. Hyphal fragments, and often conidiophores, were present on most of the slides exposed in tropical air. The evidence indicates no gradual diminution as distance from land increases, but that numbers in the air are correlated with air masses and fungi can successfully make the west to east crossing of the Atlantic.

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