In 2004, a father and daughter team noted
an increase in fungal spores when distant wildfires sent smoke
overhead. Surprisingly, the finding inspired no further
research until fourteen years later, when "pyroaerobiology"
was born again as a graduate student project. Recent work has
revealed that typical wildfires emit ~1012
microbial cells per kg fuel burned, and over 75% of these
cells are viable. Smoke's emissions also include high
concentrations of biological ice nucleation particles with
consequences to cloud glaciation and precipitation downwind.
World-wide increases in the magnitude and frequency of
wildfires provide powerful motivation for determining the
consequences of smoke bacteria and fungi, some of which are
likely extremophiles. In this talk, I will share the story of
how the recent discovery of smoke microbes has progressed from
observation to prediction of their long-distance transport and
impacts.
About the Speaker:
Leda N. Kobziar completed her M.S. in
dendrochronology (2000) and Ph.D. in fire ecology (2006) at
the University of California at Berkeley. She then joined the
faculty at the University of Florida where she served as
Associate Professor of Forest Conservation and Fire Science
until 2016. She is now the Associate Professor of Wildland
Fire Science and Director of the Master of Natural Resources
program at the University of Idaho. Her recent work
establishes pyroaerobiology as a new discipline to integrate
fire ecology, atmospheric science, and microbiology. Her work
has been featured in media outlets around the world.