Distribution of aerial grass pollen revealed using environmental metabarcoding

Grass pollen is an important aeroallergen and sensitivity towards grass pollen varies between species, but currently there is no way of detecting, modelling or forecasting the aerial-dispersion of grass pollen below family level. Environmental metabarcoding allows challenging biodiversity assessments to be completed with relative ease, using high throughput methods. Using metabarcoding sequencing of the rbcL and ITS2 markers, we show that there is a seasonal progression of aerial grass pollen which varies with latitude across Britain.