PU Foam Disk Passive Samplers for Bioaerosol Monitoring. Capturing the Aerobiome: Application of Polyurethane Foam Disk Passive Samplers for Bioaerosol Monitoring

Bioaerosols are ubiquitous in urban environments, agricultural areas, and the oil sands region and play a significant role in global climate, and human health due to inhalation exposure. Active air samplers have often been used in bioaerosol monitoring. However, passive samplers are becoming an essential part in bioaerosol research due to their simple design, low maintenance, absence of electrical requirements, and the provision of time-integrated samples over weeks or months. In this study, polyurethane foam disk passive air samplers (PUF-PAS), passive dry deposition air samplers (PAS-DDs) and active high-volume (Hi-Vol) air samplers were deployed in Toronto and the Athabasca oil sands region (OSR) to provide proof-of-concept that PUF-disk passive samplers are suitable to characterize bioaerosols in a time-integrated manner across different environments impacted by different emission sources. Airborne bacterial and fungal communities were characterized using MiSeq DNA sequencing. All sampler types were shown to identify airborne microorganisms at species levels. The dominant bacterial and fungal phyla observed by all samplers were qualitatively similar. Species richness and community structure of the airborne bacterial and fungal communities varied with sites and seasons. Principal coordination analysis indicated that the bacterial and fungal communities differed between Toronto and OSR. This study has shown that PUF-PAS and PAS-DD samplers are effective in capturing bioaerosols. Further work is required to calibrate and characterize the uptake of PUF-PAS and PAS-DD for bioaerosols (against a Hi-Vol air sampler) to derive quantitative information on their abundance and allow a more meaningful application of these time-integrated samplers to assess sources and potential exposure risks associated with bioaerosols.