Deposition of airborne particles occurs by gravitational fallout or by wind impaction onto surfaces. Costs of bioaerosols to humans and agriculture can be severe. Bioaerosols can also cause substantial economic losses to agriculture and respiratory diseases in animals can be increased by exposure to high bioaerosol concentrations. Many factors can be detrimental to bioaerosol survival. However, besides the sampling process, other conditions determine if an organism will survive once it has been aerosolized.
Air movement can cause particles to travel great distances.
For example, pollen deposits have been observed at the earth's poles. More specifically, aerosolization can cause stress on bacterial populations, which are the focus of this experiment. Environmental conditions during aerosolization include cellular and atmospheric conditions. Cellular conditions, for purposes of this experiment, include size of the bioaerosol and also the size of the droplet it is encased in. Larger cells or cells encased in larger droplets have a better chance of surviving the airborne state.