Bioaerosol generation by raindrops on soil
Young Soo Joung, Zhifei Ge & Cullen R. Buie
Nature Communications 8, Article number: 14668 (2017)
doi:10.1038/ncomms14668
Here we report a previously unknown mechanism by which rain disperses soil bacteria into the air. Bubbles, tens of micrometres in size, formed inside the raindrops disperse micro-droplets containing soil bacteria during raindrop impingement. A single raindrop can transfer 0.01% of bacteria on the soil surface and the bacteria can survive more than one hour after the aerosol generation process. This work further reveals that bacteria transfer by rain is highly dependent on the regional soil profile and climate conditions.