Articles | Volume 22, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-103-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-103-2025
Research article
 | 
09 Jan 2025
Research article |  | 09 Jan 2025

Aggregation of ice-nucleating macromolecules from Betula pendula pollen determines ice nucleation efficiency

Florian Wieland, Nadine Bothen, Ralph Schwidetzky, Teresa M. Seifried, Paul Bieber, Ulrich Pöschl, Konrad Meister, Mischa Bonn, Janine Fröhlich-Nowoisky, and Hinrich Grothe

Related authors

Surfaces of silver birch (Betula pendula) are sources of biological ice nuclei: in vivo and in situ investigations
Teresa M. Seifried, Paul Bieber, Laura Felgitsch, Julian Vlasich, Florian Reyzek, David G. Schmale III, and Hinrich Grothe
Biogeosciences, 17, 5655–5667, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-5655-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-5655-2020, 2020

Related subject area

Biogeochemistry: Air - Land Exchange
Evaluating adsorption isotherm models for determining the partitioning of ammonium between soil and soil pore water in environmental soil samples
Matthew G. Davis, Kevin Yan, and Jennifer G. Murphy
Biogeosciences, 21, 5381–5392, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5381-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5381-2024, 2024
Short summary
Similar freezing spectra of particles in plant canopies and in the air at a high-altitude site
Annika Einbock and Franz Conen
Biogeosciences, 21, 5219–5231, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5219-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5219-2024, 2024
Short summary
Anticorrelation of net uptake of atmospheric CO2 by the world ocean and terrestrial biosphere in current carbon cycle models
Stephen E. Schwartz
Biogeosciences, 21, 5045–5057, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5045-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-5045-2024, 2024
Short summary
Impact of meteorological conditions on the biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emission rate from eastern Mediterranean vegetation under drought
Qian Li, Gil Lerner, Einat Bar, Efraim Lewinsohn, and Eran Tas
Biogeosciences, 21, 4133–4147, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-4133-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-4133-2024, 2024
Short summary
Monitoring cropland daily carbon dioxide exchange at field scales with Sentinel-2 satellite imagery
Pia Gottschalk, Aram Kalhori, Zhan Li, Christian Wille, and Torsten Sachs
Biogeosciences, 21, 3593–3616, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3593-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3593-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Adar, C., Sirotinskaya, V., Bar Dolev, M., Friehmann, T., and Braslavsky, I.: Falling water ice affinity purification of ice-binding proteins, Sci. Rep., 8, 11046, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29312-x, 2018. 
Alsante, A. N., Thornton, D. C. O., and Brooks, S. D.: Effect of Aggregation and Molecular Size on the Ice Nucleation Efficiency of Proteins, Environ. Sci. Technol., 58, 4594–4605, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c06835, 2024. 
Augustin, S., Wex, H., Niedermeier, D., Pummer, B., Grothe, H., Hartmann, S., Tomsche, L., Clauss, T., Voigtländer, J., Ignatius, K., and Stratmann, F.: Immersion freezing of birch pollen washing water, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 10989–11003, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-10989-2013, 2013. 
Bar Dolev, M., Braslavsky, I., and Davies, P. L.: Ice-binding proteins and their function, Annu. Rev. Biochem., 85, 515–542, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-biochem-060815-014546, 2016. 
Bieber, P. and Borduas-Dedekind, N.: High-speed cryo-microscopy reveals that ice-nucleating proteins of Pseudomonas syringae trigger freezing at hydrophobic interfaces, Sci. Adv., 10, eadn6606, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adn6606, 2024. 
Download
Short summary
Betula pendula is a widespread birch tree species containing ice nucleation agents that can trigger the freezing of cloud droplets and thereby alter the evolution of clouds. Our study identifies three distinct ice-nucleating macromolecule (INM) aggregates of varying size that can nucleate ice at temperatures up to –5.4°C. Our findings suggest that these vegetation-derived particles may influence atmospheric processes, weather, and climate more strongly than previously thought.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint