Microbiology in Clouds at Whiteface Mountain with Analysis of Air Quality 2024

SARA LOMBARDO, Archana Tripathy, Sridar V. Chittur, Andrew Hayden, Marcy Kuentzel, Paul Casson, Rudra Patel, Lily Hammond, Sara Lance, University at Albany

     Abstract Number: 115
     Working Group: Bioaerosols

Abstract
Whiteface Mountain (WFM) in northern NY State is the site of a historic mountaintop atmospheric observatory with an ongoing cloud water chemistry monitoring program that has been operating every summer (June through September) since 1994. Though long-term chemical analysis has been conducted, no analysis on the microbiome has been completed at WFM. Over the years, a new chemical regime has been reported in the cloudwater with missing analytes. Knowing how microbes can interact with chemicals and chemicals interact with microbes will add another lens of analysis to our cloudwater studies.

Starting in 2024, we began microbial analysis of cloudwater filters using 16S DNA sequencing and have been able to start identifying common microbial species found in WFM clouds. Key attention has been paid to filters collected during high times of air pollution as monitored by NYSERDA. This study seeks to highlight microbially studied filters based on chemical composition and air pollution significance to offer insight on the connections that can be made among the three.