Characterization of bacteria emission over the North-Eastern Atlantic using mesocosm experiments

Airborne bacteria play an important role in the Earths climate system, by acting as ice-nucleating particles and thus influencing cloud phase. As 70 percent of the Earth is covered by oceans, quantifying and characterizing bacteria emissions over these waters are key to the enhancement of climate models. Furthermore, airborne bacteria can have adverse effects on human health.To investigate the aerosolization of bacteria in conjunction with sea spray aerosols (SSA), we conducted mesocosm experiments in the Azores archipelago in the North-Eastern Atlantic. We used a plunging jet sea spray simulation chamber filled with coastal seawater, which allowed us to generate and collect nascent SSA onto filter samples under controlled conditions, excluding any terrestrial sources. 16S rRNA sequencing was employed to investigate the microbial community composition in the seawater and aerosol samples in order to identify taxa that are preferably aerosolized from the North-Eastern Atlantic.