Integrated eDNA metabarcoding and morphological analyses assess spatio-temporal patterns of airborne fungal spores

Fungi represent relevant allergens and plant pathogens that can disperse on long ranges, potentially producing severe consequences public health agriculture. Up to 11% of the bioaerosol particles are fungal spores mycelium fragments. Estimation species diversity in time space is decisive but may be biased by abiotic conditions sampling methods. Traditional morphological analyses have been widely applied aerobiology past, while recently eDNA metabarcoding complement these studies. Here, we used both analysis (spore count taxon identification) high-throughput sequencing disentangle spatio-temporal variation fungi across Northern Central Italy evaluate detection efficiency two approaches. Our results showed detects about three times more genera has a higher than analyses. However, high spore methods when most abundant or rarest considered it substantially vary between approaches moderately analyzed. Furthermore, determination resulted variance explained PERMANOVA with respect (26% 13%, respectively), which leads better characterization genera. As capture significant interactions seasons sites, they could preferably as complementing reliably study airborne variation.