The need for Pan‐European automatic pollen and fungal spore monitoring: A stakeholder workshop position paper

Abstract

Background: Information about airborne pollen concentrations is required by a range of end users, particularly from the health sector who use both observations and forecasts to diagnose and treat allergic patients. Manual methods are the standard for such measurements but, despite the range of pollen taxa that can be identified, these techniques suffer from a range of drawbacks. This includes being available at low temporal resolution (usually daily averages) and with a delay (usually 3-9 days from the measurement). Recent technological developments have made possible automatic pollen measurements, which are available at high temporal resolution and in real time, although currently only scattered in a few locations across Europe.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Detecting Airborne Pollen Using an Automatic, Real-Time Monitoring System: Evidence from Two Sites

“…Much progress has been made as, for example, in the cases of O’Connor et al [ 37 ] with a WIBS-4 device or of Crouzy et al [ 14 ] with Plair PA-300 in Switzerland [ 38 , 39 ], but the issues of reliability and replicability of results are still under investigation or dispute. There have been recently initiated major inter-comparison campaigns via European projects [ 40 , 41 ], as the ‘Autopollen’ within the framework of EUMETNET ( ; accessed on 15 February 2022), as well as the EU-COST Action CA18226 ‘ADOPT’ ( ; accessed on 15 February 2022). However, to date, there is no conclusive published information on intercomparison campaigns among automatic devices for differing environmental regimes, between different devices of the same brand, and against paired comparisons with the ‘gold-standard’ conventional Hirst-type monitoring system.…”

Automatic detection of airborne pollen: an overview

“…The high temporal resolution of automatic pollen and fungal spore measurements provides the possibility for a quantum leap in terms of the research that is possible. Domains as diverse as epidemiology, atmospheric physics, and agronomy, amongst many others, would significantly benefit from such information (Tummon et al, 2021). The door is also open to a wide range of other fields where the application of these data has not yet been explored.…”

“…Real-and near-real-time information about current pollen and fungal spore concentrations is useful to a wide range of stakeholders. Although largely overlapping, the requirements of end-users for medical purposes, climate change analysis, crop forecasting, pest disease control in agronomy, or forecast modelling are not necessarily identical (Tummon et al, 2021). As an automatic pollen and fungal spore monitoring network is established across Europe, the techniques and standards applied should serve the diverse needs of all stakeholders, whichever domain they focus on.…”

Pollen Monitoring by Optical Microscopy and DNA Metabarcoding: Comparative Study and New Insights

“…Pollen is well studied worldwide to investigate the likelihood of human exposure to these aeroallergens, the human sensitivity to them and the severity of allergic symptoms. As a matter of fact, allergic diseases are amongst the most common chronic disorders [ 3 , 4 ], hence the knowledge of atmospheric pollen concentrations in different regions and seasons is compulsory to achieve a better management of the associated diseases [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ].…”