“Wildland fire is known to play an important role in aerosolizing microbes sourced from vegetation and soil communities, but little is known about their spatiotemporal patterns across environmental gradients in smoke plumes. During prescribed fires in Kansas tallgrass prairies, simultaneous deployment of three uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with bioaerosol sampling and environmental sensor payloads enabled simultaneous measurements (~100 m intervals) across smoke plumes to better understand patterns of aerosolized microbes, relationships to their environment and sources, and their transport. Using data collected from nine smoke plume transects, we made comparisons to samples collected from ambient air to evaluate hypotheses about microbial composition and diversity as the smoke advected with prevailing winds.”
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Bonfantine, K., Lampman, P., Vuono, D.C. et al. The ecology of a smoke plume: bioaerosol patterns reveal abiotic and biotic drivers of diversity. fire ecol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-026-00475-7