Microbiology and atmospheric processes: research challenges concerning the impact of airborne micro-organisms on the atmosphere and climate

摘要

For the past 200 years, the field of aerobiology has explored the abundance,diversity, survival and transport of micro-organisms in the atmosphere.Micro-organisms have been explored as passive and severely stressed ridersof atmospheric transport systems. Recently, an interest in the active rolesof these micro-organisms has emerged along with proposals that theatmosphere is a global biome for microbial metabolic activity and perhapseven multiplication. As part of a series of papers on the sources,distribution and roles in atmospheric processes of biological particles inthe atmosphere, here we describe the pertinence of questions relating to thepotential roles that air-borne micro-organisms might play in meteorologicalphenomena. For the upcoming era of research on the role of air-bornemicro-organisms in meteorological phenomena, one important challenge is togo beyond descriptions of abundance of micro-organisms in the atmospheretoward an understanding of their dynamics in terms of both biological andphysico-chemical properties and of the relevant transport processes atdifferent scales. Another challenge is to develop this understanding undercontexts pertinent to their potential role in processes related toatmospheric chemistry, the formation of clouds, precipitation and radiativeforcing. This will require truly interdisciplinary approaches involvingcollaborators from the biological and physical sciences, from disciplines asdisparate as agronomy, microbial genetics and atmosphere physics, forexample.