Exploring the ecology of airborne pollen biodiversity using environmental DNA analysis and identifying links to hay fever

Almost a quarter of the UK population are sensitised to wind-blown pollen released by either grasses or trees. The resulting allergic reactions cause substantial socio-economic costs via lack of productivity and burden on general practitioners. Although tree pollens can be discriminated by microscopy, the process is slow and resource intensive.
Moreover, due to conserved morphology we have no easy way of identifying species of grass pollen. Accordingly, patients and health practitioners do not know what species cause symptoms. Recent developments by the CASE partner NBGW in the generation of a UK plant DNA "barcode" library and high-throughput DNA sequencing (Kraaijeveld et al. Mol. Ecol. Res. 2015) have provided a timely opportunity to identify the species, or combinations of species of grass that are associated with the allergic response. Identification of species known to cause allergies will allow prediction of high risk periods for allergy sufferers, enabling preventive measures to be taken to reduce exposure and use of medication to reduce burden of disease. The PI and co-applicants with the UK Met Office have recently secured a £1.2M NERC Grant to enhance the way that grass pollen is measured via molecular genetic analysis and identify linkages to asthma. Nevertheless, the grant, started in Spring 2016 will not look at tree pollens and/or hay fever symptoms. In this complementary, yet distinct studentship, we will: (a.) to accelerate the discrimination of tree pollens, assess the efficacy of combinations of qPCR, Illumina metabarcoding and shotgun sequencing to quantify species-specific pollen deposition of the eight major allergenic UK trees. (b.) use aerobiological modelling to compare the spatial and temporal deposition of different species of both tree and grass pollens in relation to tree and pollen morphology and atmospheric variables. (c.) identify linkages between species-specific grass pollen deposition and the incidence of UK hay fever.