The sequenced clone library approach has been used with the 16S rRNA gene to catalog bacterial diversity in aerosol samples from the US and France [28, 33 and 35]. Such libraries provide information on the relative abundance of species present (acknowledging inherent PCR and cloning biases) with a focus on the most dominant species. Interestingly, 16S rRNA clone sequence libraries generated from urban aerosols in the US have been dominated by Bacillus and other spore-forming species (Figure 1) [33 and 35]. The same genera also dominated in assessments carried out using traditional culture-based methods in the US [27] and West Africa [4]. Much larger clone libraries would be needed to detect all the rare types typical of microbial species abundance distributions. Recent technological advances in high-throughput sequencing coupled with cost reductions, make the generation of larger cloned gene libraries feasible. However, advances are needed to further automate the downstream analysis of resulting sequences, tasks that are still relatively labor intensive. Technology that combines the parallel detection and sensitivity of hybridization assays with the resolution and species abundance information of sequenced clone libraries would fill the gaps now characteristic of the individual methods.
All of the techniques for community survey presented above rely on PCR amplification of a mixed product from a complex DNA sample. Efforts are underway to avoid the use of PCR amplification and its inherent biases in environmental surveys using hybridization arrays (reviewed in [31•]; e.g. [34]). Direct metagenomic sequencing of the mixture of DNA extracted from aerosols can also potentially avoid PCR biases and provide an in-depth profile of genes in the sample. The ecological questions addressed using metagenomics technology need to be chosen with care, especially in highly complex (many species) environmental samples. The relative abundance of prokaryotic and eukaryotic species, and their genome sizes, are crucial parameters. In metagenomic libraries the dominant members can swamp out rare types that might easily be detected by specific PCR methods.
Air sampling and processing
Patterns of airflow are highly variable and surveys of aerosol microorganisms are confounded by sampling and scaling issues. A wide variety of air collection devices are used to collect aerosol samples (reviewed in [11 and36]). The volume of air collected, the size range of the collected material, and the techniques used to culture or extract nucleic acids (or other biomarkers), will all affect the observed abundance and composition of microorganisms in atmospheric surveys. For these reasons, it is crucially important to view experimental results as relative, and to factor in the methods that were used when interpreting different studies.