Abstract View
Microorganism in Atmospheric Water and How They Drive Formaldehyde Transformation
THUONG CAO, Pierre Herckes, Ferran Garcia-Pichel, Arizona State University
Abstract Number: 553
Working Group: Bioaerosols
Abstract
Research on the microorganism-mediated conversion of organic compounds in atmospheric water (clouds and fogs) has recently emerged in the bioaerosol community. Most existing work focused on observations in pristine environments (mainly Puy de Dôme, France) and few observations exist on microorganisms and bacterial biotransformation in more polluted environments such as urban fogs. In this study, bacterial strains isolated from samples collected in Bakersfield (California, USA) were used to investigate the biodegradation rate of formaldehyde. The initial results showed that the biodegradation of formaldehyde occurred at both 4 °C and 17 °C and ranges from 10-21 to 10-19 mol cell-1 s-1. These observations are consistent with the rate reported in Puy de Dôme clouds, implying that the redox reaction rate of formaldehyde promoted by microorganisms in atmospheric water does not depend strongly on sample locations. Moreover, the bacterial community composition was identified by 16S rRNA sequencing, and Proteobacteria (Alpha-, Beta- and Gamma-), Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria largely dominated in our samples. Although there are differences in the population, the presence of microorganisms in both Bakersfield (US) and Puy de Dôme (France) suggests the global occurrence of these species.