Richness and Diversity in Dust Stormborne Biomes at the Southeast

Dust storms include particulate matter that is transported over land and sea with biota that could impactdownwind ecosystems. In addition to the physico-chemical compositions, organismal diversities of dustfromtwostormeventsinsouthernIsrael,December2012(Ev12)andJanuary2013(Ev13),weredeterminedby pyro-sequencing using primers universal to 16S and 18S rRNA genes and compared. Thebio-assemblagesinthecollecteddustsampleswereaffiliatedwithscoresofdifferenttaxa.Distinctpatternsof richness and diversity of the two events were influenced by the origins of the air masses: Ev13 was richwith reads affiliated to Betaproteobacteriaand Embryophyta, consistent with a European origin. Ev12,originated in north-Africa, contained significantly more of the Actinobacteriaand fungi, without conifers.Theabundanceofbacterialandeukaryoticreadsdemonstratesdisseminationofbiologicalmaterialindustthatmayimposehealthhazardsofpathogensandallergens,andinfluencevegetationmigrationthroughoutthe world.