A Preliminary Investigation on the Atmospheric Mycoflora of Austin, TX

 

 

Rationale:  If the molds are buoyant in the atmosphere, present in significant number and possess allergenic property, they are considered medically significant. The studies on these molds present indoor are voluminous whereas scant in outdoor. Hence, a preliminary study was conducted on the atmospheric environment of Austin, TX.

 

Methods:  The study was conducted using the exposure of agar plates on PDA, SDA and MEA at 8 different sites spread over in the city at the height of 70cm during summer.

 

Results:  Altogether 810 colonies of fungi belonging to 24 species were isolated belonging to 13 genera. Among them Aspergillus and Penicillium were represented by maximum number (4) of species followed by Cladosporium, Curvularia and Drechslera (3). The remaining genera were represented by single species. Among the species Cladosporium cladosporiodes dominated the atmosphere with its contribution of 26% followed by non-sporulating colonies (18%). The species, Drechslera australiensis, Fusarium oxysporum, Drechslera hawaiiensis and Alternaria alternata contributed 13%, 11%, 10% and 9.7% respectively. The following species, i.e. Drechslera halodes (3%), Nigrospora sphaerica (1.7%) and Cladosporium chlorocephalum (1.2%) contributed to a smaller extent. The percent contribution of the remaining species were less than 1%.

 

Conclusions:  The study reveals the isolation of large number of allergenic fungi from the atmosphere of Austin and it is stressed that conducting such an outdoor study is necessary. The absence of the dominance of Aspergillus and Penicillium in this study is attributed to the methodology opted.