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  4. Advancing Automated Identification of Airborne Fungal Spores: Guidelines for Cultivation and Reference Dataset Creation
 
research article

Advancing Automated Identification of Airborne Fungal Spores: Guidelines for Cultivation and Reference Dataset Creation

Bruffaerts, Nicolas
•
Graf, Elias
•
Matavulj, Predrag
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June 2, 2025
Aerobiologia

Airborne bioparticles, including fungal spores, are of major concern for human and plant health, necessitating precise monitoring systems. While a European norm exists for manual volumetric monitoring, there's a growing interest in automated real-time methods. However, these methods rely heavily on machine learning, facing challenges due to diverse particle characteristics and limited training data availability, especially for fungal spores. This study aims to address this gap by outlining best practices for collecting reference material and creating tailored datasets for training algorithms. Using 17 fungal species from the Belgian fungi collection BCCM/IHEM, including five Alternaria species, key aspects such as in vitro cultivation, dry spore harvest, and aerosolization were addressed. Simple classification models were developed, achieving varying accuracies on different monitors. The Plair Rapid-E+ demonstrated accuracies ranging from 83.4% to 95.1% (macro average F1-score 0.61), with better recognition for Cladosporium spp. and Curvularia caricae-papayae. The SwisensPoleno Jupiter, initially achieving a macro average F1-score of 0.77 with holographic images of eight genera, improved to 0.83 when combined with fluorescence data. Accuracies ranged from 55 to 95%, with notable performance for Alternaria spp. and Curvularia caricae-papayae. Species differentiation was also shown to be possible for Cladosporium, but was more difficult for some Alternaria species, while the macro average F1-score remained good (0.72). Overall, this protocol paves the way for more efficient, standard, and accurate automatic identification of airborne fungal spores.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1007/s10453-025-09864-y
Web of Science ID

WOS:001500315800001

Author(s)
Bruffaerts, Nicolas

Sciensano

Graf, Elias

Swisens AG

Matavulj, Predrag

Univ Appl Sci North Western Switzerland

Tiwari, Astha

Sciensano

Pyrri, Ioanna

National & Kapodistrian University of Athens

Zeder, Yanick

Swisens AG

Erb, Sophie  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Plaza, Maria

University of Augsburg

Dietler, Silas

Swiss Center for Electronics & Microtechnology (CSEM)

Bendinelli, Tommaso

Swiss Center for Electronics & Microtechnology (CSEM)

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Date Issued

2025-06-02

Publisher

SPRINGER

Published in
Aerobiologia
Subjects

Airflow cytometry

•

Automatic identification

•

Culture collection

•

Fungal spores

•

Machine learning

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LTE  
FunderFunding(s)Grant NumberGrant URL

EURAMET project BioAirMet

E-COST-GRANT-CA18226-fa273a24;E-COST-GRANT-CA18226-d7 d22ed3

COST Action ADOPT through STSMs

200358

Ministry Science, Technological Development and Innovations of the Republic of Serbia

IZCOZ0_198117

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Available on Infoscience
June 9, 2025
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/251122
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