Airborne pollen in Padua (NE-Italy): A comparison between two pollen samplers

During recent years a gradual decrease inallergenic airborne pollen concentration hasbeen observed in the monitoring station ofPadua (Italy). Because technical checks of thesampler were not able to explain this trend,the results obtained from two twinpollen-samplers (Lanzoni VPPS 2000), placed twometres apart, were compared.An eight-week sampling was carried out duringthe year 2000 from July to September.Subsequent analysis revealed no statisticallysignificant difference between the dataobtained with the two instruments. On the otherhand, both samplers captured high levels offungal spores. We conclude that the observednegative trend in pollen count is real and notrelated to technical biases.