The sea to air bacteria transfer from the coastal waters.

Abstract

Bacteria transfer from the water into the air may play an important role in bioaerosol cycle. Bubbles raising through the water column collect bacteria but also other suspended material and transport them towards water surface. When the bubble burst at the water surface collected material are skimmed off the bubble to become highly enriched in jet and film drops. After ejection airborne droplets can evaporate and as small droplets can be transported even to remote locations. Such a stream of aerosol droplets may carry stream of bacteria scavenged from the water column. The fate of bacteria in the air may possibly depend on the environmental conditions like intensity of sunlight or ambient air humidity. In addition the wind speed might be responsible for both wave/bubble mediated production of marine originated droplets and their transport in the atmosphere. The evidences that bacteria are transferred from the breaking waves, in particular in the coastal zone, were observed during several field experiments conducted in 1994 and 1995 over the Gulf of Gdansk and the Baltic Sea coast. Enhanced sea to air bacteria transfer were noticed over the polluted waters where in addition gas supersaturations in the water were recorded. Further laboratory investigations of bacteria scavenge via bubbles produced by single capillary and by plume of bubbles produced by ceramic stone indicated high enrichment within both mesophile and psychrophile bacteria categories.