In the Bio-Complexity
project, advanced instrumentation required to understand
and predict the emission and transport of “Primary
Biological Aerosol Particles” (PBAP) into the atmosphere
is developed and tested both in the laboratory and in the
field. The ability to measure biological aerosols over a
range of scales is essential for understanding their impact
on the environment. PBAPs include pollen, viruses, bacteria,
fungal spores, and allergens from animals, which affect
the health of humans, animals and plants. For example, knowledge
on the dispersal of disease-producing fungal spores is necessary
to establish management strategies to protect agricultural
crops.
The transport of pollen
has always been of interest due to the decreasing probability
of cross-fertilization and consequent decreasing genetic
diversity between vegetation patches in fragmented landscapes.
More recently, the news media has focused on the lack of
knowledge about the transport distance of genetically altered
pollen, which can contaminate natural populations. To understand
the processes involved in transporting pollen (or any PBAP),
it is crucial to develop the instrumentation along with
the computational modeling framework that can be used to
predict the emission and transport of these particles under
different atmospheric conditions. In this study we will
focus on pollen due, in part, to the pressing societal needs
to understand pollen transport, and also because it offers
the advantage that pollen from different plants differ morphologically
allowing its source to be identified and its pathways identified.
The instrumentation and associated modeling techniques could
be applied in the future to any biological aerosols.
We
will integrate information on the movement of pollen across
multiple scales of time and space spanning the motion of
pollen (microns), its release from the plant anther (centimeters),
its entrainment into the atmospheric boundary layer (meters),
up to its dispersion across field scales (kilometers). At
the pollen scale, small wind tunnel studies, microscopic
techniques and Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) to quantify
the dynamics of pollen motion are used. At the anther and
plant scales,particle tracking using high-speed digital
photography, particle image velocimetry (PIV) and holography,
along with DNS and high resolution Large Eddy Simulation
(LES) are employed. In the field a combination of the instrumentation
developed in the laboratory (PIV, holography) and micrometeorological
instrumentation, pollen collectors, and LIDAR (light detection
and ranging) are applied at sites around the Chesapeake
Bay. The field experiments will be used to understand the
transport of the pollen grains and test and refine LES models
for pollen transport at field scales.
The
combined experimental and computational framework and the
novel deployment of the proposed ensemble of instruments
will lead to better predictions and basic understanding
of the transport and fate of biological aerosols in the
turbulent atmosphere.
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Scientific Journals
van Hout, R., Zhu, W., Luznik, L., Katz, J., Kleissl, J., Parlange, M., 2004:
PIV measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer within and above a mature corn canopy. Part A: Statistics and small scale isotropy
. To be submitted to JAS.  download a pdf version
Zhu, W., van Hout, R., Katz, J., 2004:
PIV measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer within and above a mature corn canopy. Part B: Quadrant-Hole analysis. To be submitted to JAS.
van Hout, R., Katz, J., 2004. A method for measuring the density of irregularly shaped biological aerosols such as pollen.
Journal of Aerosol Science 35, 1369-1384.
Conferences and Proceedings
van Hout, R., Smith, J., Chamecki, M., Higgins, C., Katz, J., Parlange, M., Brush, G., 2005: The circadian rhythm of corn ( Zea mays L. ) pollen dispersal into the atmosphere and its relation with local meteorological conditions. Biocomplexity in the environment Awardees 2005 Meeting, March 20-23, Washington DC, USA.
download a pdf version
van Hout, Zhu, W., Katz, J., 2005:
Experimental study at increasing scales of the characteristics of corn ( Zea Mays L. ) pollen dispersal into the atmosphere . Biocomplexity in the environment Awardees 2005 Meeting, March 20-23, Washington DC, USA.
download a pdf version
van Hout, R., Zhu, W., Luznik, L., Katz, J., 2004. PIV measurements of atmospheric turbulence above and within a corn canopy. To be presented at the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics 57th Annual Meeting , 21-23 November, Seattle, WA, USA.
Yue, W., Parlange, M., Meneveau, C., Zhu, W., van Hout, R., Katz, J., 2004. Numerical Investigation of Turbulence Structures Within and Above A Corn Canopy Using Large Eddy Simulation. AMS meeting, 16th Symposium on Boundary Layers and Turbulence, 9-13 August, Portland, ME, USA. Zhu, W., Luznik, L., van Hout, R., Katz, J., 2004. PIV measurements of atmospheric turbulence above and within a corn canopy. AMS meeting, 16th Symposium on Boundary Layers and Turbulence, 9-13 August, Portland, ME, USA.
van Hout, R., Katz, J., 2003. A method for measuring the density of irregularly shaped particles such as pollen. AGU 2003 Fall meeting, 8-12 December, Moscone Center West, San Francisco
download a pdf version
Zhu, W., Luznik, L., van Hout, R., Katz, J., 2003. PIV measurements of atmospheric turbulence and pollen dispersal above a corn canopy. AGU 2003 Fall meeting, 8-12 December, Moscone Center West, San Francisco
download a pdf version |
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