Will Air Eutrophication Increase the Risk of Ecological Threat to Public Health?

Minimal research has been done on airbornealgal toxins.This study reports that air eutrophication may beaccelerated under the catalyst of anthropogenic forcings, posing athreat to public health and the environment. Aquatic eutrophication, often with anthropogenic causes,facilitatesblooms of cyanobacteria including cyanotoxin producing species, whichprofoundly impact aquatic ecosystems and human health. An emergingconcern is that aquatic eutrophication may interact with other environmentalchanges and thereby lead to unexpected cascading effects on terrestrialsystems. Here, we synthesize recent evidence showing the possibilitythat accelerating eutrophication will spill over from aquatic ecosystemsto the atmosphere via air eutrophication, a novelconcept that refers to a process promoting the growth of airbornealgae, some of them with the capacity to produce toxic compounds forhumans and other organisms. Being catalyzed by various anthropogenicforcings including aquatic eutrophication, climate warming,air contamination, and artificial light at night acceleratedair eutrophication may be expected in the future, posing a potentiallyincreasing risk of threat to public health and the environment. Sofar knowledge of this topic is sparse, and we therefore consider aireutrophication a potentially important research field and proposean agenda of cross-discipline research. As a contribution, we havecalculated a tolerable daily intake of 17 ng m(-3) day(-1) for the nasal intake of microcystins byhumans.

Automated summary

Minimal research has been done on airborne algal toxins. This study reports that air eutrophication may be accelerated under the catalyst of anthropogenic forcings, posing a threat to public health and the environment.