Short communication: Do we need continuous sampling to capture variability of hourly pollen concentrations?

Although considered a golden standard in aerobiology, continuous long-term sampling of bioaerosols is resource demanding. The aim of this study was to explore whether, if needed, intermittent sampling could replace the continuous one without major loss of information. Hourly pollen concentrations obtained by averaging 56, 28, 14 and 7 equidistantly distributed 1.07-min concentrations of Ambrosia airborne pollen were compared. The analysis revealed that majority of information on trends and magnitude in hourly concentrations is captured even if the sampling is not continuous. The correlations were high for all intermittent sampling arrangements, but absolute percentage error increased with the decrease in samples used for calculating hourly concentration.