A static water surface sampler to measure bioaerosol deposition and characterize microbial community diversity

A static water surface sampler was developed to quantify bioaerosol deposition rates without the need of culturing prior to enumeration. Measured bioaerosol deposition fluxes upwind and downwind of an activated sludge aeration basin ranged from 7.7×106 to 1.4×107#/m2h. Upwind bioaerosol fluxes were approximately 1.5 times smaller than downwind fluxes. The mean atmospheric bioaerosol concentrations measured simultaneously with an open-face filter sampler ranged between 1.3×105 and 1.4×105#/m3 upwind and downwind of the aeration basin respectively. The deposition velocities derived from the simultaneous measurements (1.5 and 3.2 cm/s upwind and downwind respectively) were similar to those found for trace elements using similar techniques. Results from amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis confirm that the bacterial composition of the downwind samples contained DNA fragments consistent with the wastewater, while these fragments do not appear in upwind samples. The sampler will accommodate the inclusion of state-of-the-art biomolecular tools and allow for the generation of quantitative data needed for fate and transport models.