Seasonal Fine and Coarse Culturable Fungal Constituents and Concentrations from Indoor and Outdoor Air Samples Taken from an Arid Environment

Abstract

This study was undertaken to determine the normal indoor and outdoor airborne culturable fungal constituents and concentrations of an arid environment. Air samples were taken with two-stage, ambient, culturable sampler systems and analyzed for nine specific fungal genera from 50 homes as a repeated measure during each season of the year. These homes had no previous histories of indoor air quality issues. This study detected seasonal differences for the arid environment between different culturable fungal concentrations across the two size ranges. The highest concentrations were during fall, in the outdoor fine-size range. The lowest concentrations were the indoor coarse concentrations in the spring. From this study it can be concluded that Cladosporium spp. had the highest concentrations during fall in an arid environment. The overall findings suggest that Cladosporium had concentrations greater than the other genera evaluated, specifically, the fall outdoor fine concentrations. Seasonality was found to be a key factor in determining the variability of fungal constituents and concentrations within the arid indoor and outdoor environments. The fine-size range was 12 times and 6 times greater than the coarse-size range for indoor and outdoor samples, respectively, which accounted for the majority of fungal organisms. In addition, the results from this study in an arid climate differ from those conducted in a moister climate.

Keywords:

• air samples
• Aspergillus
• Bioaerosol
• Cladosporium
• fungi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors acknowledge the contributions of Angelina Gandara and Alejandro Gutierrez at The University of Texas at El Paso, and Fernanda Payan and Carla Alvarado at the University of Texas School of Public Health. Editorial support was provided by Susan Navarro and the Hispanic Health Disparities Research Center (P20 MD000548-01 NIH/NCMHD). This research was partially funded by Hot Projects, an initiative of the Paso del Norte Health Foundation, and Center of Environmental Resource Management Environmental Protection Agency Student Support Program at The University of Texas at El Paso.