A preliminary investigation on airborne fungi of pedestrian underpasses
- PDF / 718,615 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 87 Downloads / 165 Views
(0123456789().,-volV) ( 01234567 89().,-volV)
ORIGINAL PAPER
A preliminary investigation on airborne fungi of pedestrian underpasses Bhuvaneswari Srinivasan . Induja Sundaram . Fathima Farshana . Udaya Prakash Nyayiru Kannaian
Received: 10 May 2020 / Accepted: 3 November 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Pedestrian underpasses are the unique environment where air transaction with outdoor is complicated, inducing interest to study the air quality for the presence of microbes. Thus, the study on the presence of airborne fungi from 11 different underpasses in Chennai city was conducted. The airborne fungi was monitored by exposing potato dextrose agar strips in reuter centrifugal sampler (RCS). A total of 1735 colonies were isolated from underpasses and the control site recorded only 1255 colonies. Total average colony forming unit of underpasses and control site was 157.7 CFU/m3 of air and 114.09 CFU/m3 of air, respectively. Altogether 22 species classified in 16 genera were isolated from both the environments. Of which 21 species belonging to 16 genera were isolated from underpasses whereas the control site yielded 15 species belonging to 12 genera. The isolated species were categorized into three species belonging to Zygomycota, 2 species to B. Srinivasan Department of Botany, Bharathi Women’s College, Broadway, Chennai, India I. Sundaram F. Farshana Research and Development, Marina Labs, Nerkundram, Chennai, India U. P. Nyayiru Kannaian (&) Department of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Vels Institute of Science Technology and Advanced Studies (VISTAS), Pallavaram, Chennai, India e-mail: [email protected]
Ascomycota and the remaining to Mitosporic fungi. The air sample in the underpass is dominated by the presence of the fungi, Aspergillus flavus, Curvularia lunata and A.niger, whereas the control is dominated by Cladosporium cladosporioides, Aspergillus niger and A. flavus. The study proves the underpasses are a favorite niche for the proliferation of fungal propagules and proper maintenance of underpass is recommended. Keywords Airborne fungi Underpasses Chennai RCS Average CFU/m3 Aspergillus
1 Introduction Cities in general are characterized by rapid urbanization, development of industries, highly populated and possess heavy traffic. In addition, explosion of population due to the movement of people from rural area to urban cities, the infrastructure needs to be improved. The increase in population results in the movement of people for their daily business and economic activities and thus increase in traffic. The economically weaker section use to walk as this is the simplest mode of transport. But, they are the most vulnerable group to road accidents (Pasha et al. 2015). The pedestrians need to face variety of road traffic and intensity of traffic mix. Traffic on road leads to
123
Aerobiologia
premature road accidents which effects the socioeconomic state of the country. Nearly 85% of injuries and death in low and middle-income countries are reported. In India, 78% o
Data Loading...
