Characterization of active and total fungal communities in the atmosphere over the Amazon rainforest

Womack, A. M.; Artaxo, P. E.; Ishida, F. Y.; Mueller, R. C.; Saleska, S. R.; Wiedemann, K. T.; Bohannan, B. J. M.; Green, J. L.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-6337-2015

Articles | Volume 12, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-6337-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-6337-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 21

Research article

|

06 Nov 2015

Research article |

| 06 Nov 2015

Characterization of active and total fungal communities in the atmosphere over the Amazon rainforest

A. M. Womack, P. E. Artaxo, F. Y. Ishida, R. C. Mueller, S. R. Saleska, K. T. Wiedemann, B. J. M. Bohannan, and J. L. Green

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Final revised paper (published on 06 Nov 2015)
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Preprint (discussion started on 18 May 2015)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC C2336: 'RC', Anonymous Referee #2, 21 May 2015
RC C4601: 'review of "Characterization of active and total fungal communities in the atmosphere over the Amazon rainforest"', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Aug 2015
AC C5823: 'Responses to referee comments', Ann Womack, 28 Sep 2015
- AC C5824: 'Revised manuscript', Ann Womack, 28 Sep 2015
- AC C5825: 'Revised supplement', Ann Womack, 28 Sep 2015
AC C6429: 'Responses to editor comments', Ann Womack, 12 Oct 2015
- AC C6430: 'Revised manuscript', Ann Womack, 12 Oct 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (07 Oct 2015) by Paul Stoy

I find the manuscript as written to be methodologically sound and a nice contribution to an understudied area of Earth science. I would prefer that the authors provide references for the following recently-added statement: Research has shown, for example, that concentrations of fungal spores in the atmosphere vary diurnally and seasonally. I would also remove the distinction between wet and dry season in this case; rainfall is abundant during both seasons but dry season storms tend to be more intermittent and energetic. This counters the previous statement about convective instability before thunderstorms as they influence atmospheric spore concentration and composition.

Likewise, the following statement needs references and less speculation: 'This result makes sense in light of the natural histories of many of the Ascomycota, which have single-celled or filamentous vegetative growth forms that are small enough to become aerosolized, whereas many of the Basidiomycota are too large to be easily aerosolized, other than in the form of metabolically inactive spores. It is possible that if we had sampled at night rather than during the day, we would have observed a higher relative abundance of Basidiomycota in the active community. The abundance of vegetative Ascomycota fragments may peak during the day when wind speeds are high, assuming they are passively dispersed by wind and convection (as opposed to active mechanisms many fungi use to disperse spores).' Such dynamics depend on the ability of the canopy to be flushed by turbulence and is the topic of an in review paper for the ZF2 tower: Gerken, T., Chamecki, M., Fuentes J.D.: Air parcel residence times and chemical processing of biogenic hydrocarbons within forest canopies. In review for: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

(from my experience on ZF2 I'd be curious to know the effect of the lichens on the tower itself but I don't doubt that lichens on the vegetation play a major role on the spore composition above the canopy.)

In brief, by removing speculative language and reframing these as an area of future research, both the text and future research could be strengthened.

Sincerely,
Paul C. Stoy

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AR by Ann Womack on behalf of the Authors (12 Oct 2015) Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (17 Oct 2015) by Paul Stoy

AR by Ann Womack on behalf of the Authors (26 Oct 2015) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

Fungi in the atmosphere can affect precipitation by nucleating the formation of clouds and ice. This process is important over the Amazon rainforest where precipitation is limited by the types and amount of airborne particles. We found that the total and metabolically active fungi communities were dominated by different taxonomic groups, and the active community unexpectedly contained many lichen fungi, which are effective at nucleating ice.