Browsing by Author "Bosiacka B."

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Abundance of Ganoderma sp. in Europe and SW Asia: modelling the pathogen infection levels in local trees using the proxy of airborne fungal spore concentrations
(2021-11-01) Grinn-Gofroń A.; Bogawski P.; Bosiacka B.; Nowosad J.; Camacho I.; Sadyś M.; Skjøth C.A.; Pashley C.H.; Rodinkova V.; Çeter T.; Traidl-Hoffmann C.; Damialis A.
Ganoderma comprises a common bracket fungal genus that causes basal stem rot in deciduous and coniferous trees and palms, thus having a large economic impact on forestry production. We estimated pathogen abundance using long-term, daily spore concentration data collected in five biogeographic regions in Europe and SW Asia. We hypothesized that pathogen abundance in the air depends on the density of potential hosts (trees) in the surrounding area, and that its spores originate locally. We tested this hypothesis by (1) calculating tree cover density, (2) assessing the impact of local meteorological variables on spore concentration, (3) computing back trajectories, (4) developing random forest models predicting daily spore concentration. The area covered by trees was calculated based on Tree Density Datasets within a 30 km radius from sampling sites. Variations in daily and seasonal spore concentrations were cross-examined between sites using a selection of statistical tools including HYSPLIT and random forest models. Our results showed that spore concentrations were higher in Northern and Central Europe than in South Europe and SW Asia. High and unusually high spore concentrations (> 90th and > 98th percentile, respectively) were partially associated with long distance transported spores: at least 33% of Ganoderma spores recorded in Madeira during days with high concentrations originated from the Iberian Peninsula located >900 km away. Random forest models developed on local meteorological data performed better in sites where the contribution of long distance transported spores was lower. We found that high concentrations were recorded in sites with low host density (Leicester, Worcester), and low concentrations in Kastamonu with high host density. This suggests that south European and SW Asian forests may be less severely affected by Ganoderma. This study highlights the effectiveness of monitoring airborne Ganoderma spore concentrations as a tool for assessing local Ganoderma pathogen infection levels.
Airborne fungal spore load and season timing in the Central and Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey explained by climate conditions and land use
(2020-12-15) Grinn-Gofroń A.; Çeter T.; Pinar N.M.; Bosiacka B.; Çeter S.; Keçeli T.; Myśliwy M.; Şahin A.A.; Bogawski P.
The widespread fungal aeroplankton comprises numerous plant pathogens and allergenic components. Here, we present the first study describing the airborne spore composition in the Central and Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey against the background of meteorological variables and land use. This region is climatically diverse and there are large differences in altitude and land cover. Using multivariate statistical techniques, we assessed the combined effects of the main weather factors on the airborne spore count and temporal patterns of spore season for 30 fungal taxa in five provinces with three different climate types. Moreover, we combined meteorological and land use data to search for potential source areas of airborne spores recorded at the study sites. Spore season start and peak dates substantially varied between sites (maximally 130 days between western and eastern part of the study area – for Boletus mean start date), however for most of the taxa investigated the season ended at a similar time at different sites. All the meteorological variables included in redundancy analysis accounted for 10.8–48.9% of the total variance in the fungal spore data, with the highest value in sites with continental climate. Daily mean air temperature was the most important variable and significantly correlated with the daily count of all the spore types (0.11 ≤ rs ≤ 0.84). However, when temperature range was calculated for three large, percentile-based spore count clusters it turned out that between 17% (subtropical climate) and 56% (continental climate) of the taxa showed no difference in temperature between low and high counts. Finally, based on combination of wind conditions and land use data we identified grasslands, croplands and coniferous forests as the main potential sources of fungal spores in the study area, and suggested that spores from the forests may be transported over longer distances than from open areas.