Biodiversity and biogeography of the atmosphere

[Gloria]

An interesting work about the variety of life in the sky. Having thought very little about what might have taken up residence in the atmosphere,as opposed to just passing through, this is an eye opening idea.

Biodiversity and biogeography
of the atmosphere
Ann M. Womack, Brendan J. M. Bohannan and Jessica L. Green*
Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 335 Pacific Hall, 5289 University of Oregon,
Eugene, OR 97403-5289, USA

The variation of life has predominantly been studied on land and in water, but this focus is changing.

http://biology.uoregon.edu/people/gr...20Proc%20B.pdf

Residence times of microbes probably vary as a
function of the size of the particles they are associated
with, and as a function of air temperature and relative
humidity, among other factors (Williams et al. 2002;
Burrows et al. 2009b; Pearce et al. 2009).

Understanding biological variation in aerial
ecosystems opens the possibility for a truly unified
view of biogeography, one that links biodiversity
across each component of the biosphere: the lithosphere,
hydrosphere and atmosphere.