Temporal trends of the airborne fungal spores in Catalonia (NE Spain), 1995–2013

To establish the trends in the period 1995–2013 of the annual fungal spore index of 20 taxa in 8 aerobiological sites of Catalonia, located in 4 phytoclimates, we use the nonparametric Spearman’s Rho and Mann–Kendall tests; when significant, we calculate the magnitude of the change applying the Theil–Sen estimator. We analyze whether the proportional annual change is significantly different from zero, according to phytoclimate, station, and spore taxon, with the Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test. Cladosporium, Coprinaceae and Agrocybe are the most prevalent taxa. The proportional annual change analysis shows that 12 taxa present significant increasing trends and 2 decreasing, that the Fresh-Continental Oriental-Humid phytoclimate and Agrocybe show the highest significant increase, while Roquetes-Tortosa (Fresh-Tethyc-Semiarid phytoclimate) and Torula the lowest. The greater significant decreasing proportional annual change corresponds to Drechslera–Helminthosporium and the lesser to Curvularia, and there are no results per phytoclimate and locality. The diversity of characteristics of the sites studied brings the opportunity to evaluate the variability of the fungal values and the magnitude of their change across the study period as depending on the intensity of the land use (urbanization versus agriculture) and the distance to the sea (inland versus littoral), but the effect of the change of the meteorological patterns in the recent years is not negligible. The increasing temperatures and precipitation instability established as effects of the climate change in Catalonia in the last 50 years could be stimulating the sporulation in mountain areas and affecting it in the southern Catalan littoral, thus affecting spore counts.