Airborne pollen grains of Gemlik (Bursa)

Abstract

Objective: Pollen calendars, which exposes by determinig airborne pollen, help the allergologists and the people that sensitive to allergenic pollen. The goal of this study to identify the airborne pollen grains to establish the pollen calendar of Gemlik (Bursa) in the year 2008.Materials and Methods: Airborne pollen grains in Gemlik (Bursa) were collected between 1st January and 31st December 2008 by using Durham sampler. Weekly pollen grains per cm2 were calculated.Results: During the period 6957 pollen grains/cm(2) belonging to 43 taxa (excluding unidentified pollen grains) were recorded. Eleven plant taxa take a place, which encountered up to 1% of the total and it can be reported that pollen season durations and total percentages for the dominaing pollen grains in Gemlik were; 5-32nd week for Pinus spp. (22.14%), 19-37th week for Olea europaea L. (18.19%), 9-43rd week for Gramineae (10.62%), 1224th week for Platanus spp. (10.58%), 4-27th week for Cupressaceae/Taxaceae (10.19%), 13-23rd week for Fagus spp. (6.09%), 9-21st week for Quercus spp. (5.33%), 5-19th week for Fraxinus spp. (2.41%), 423rd week for Betula spp. (1.81%), 27-44th week for Xanthium spp. (1.53%) and 14-22nd week for Jug-lans spp. (1.35%). 40.46% of total pollen grains were recorded during the month of april with a prevalence of arboreal pollen grains.Conclusion: This preliminary study performed to determine pollen calendar for Gemlik region (Bursa) may be useful for allergologists to establish an exact diagnosis of the people that has pollen allergy.