Characterising non-linear associations between airborne pollen counts and respiratory symptoms from the AirRater smartphone app in Tasmania, Australia: A case time series approach.

Pollen is a well-established trigger of asthma and allergic rhinitis, yet concentration-response relationships, lagged effects, and interactions with other environmental factors remain poorly understood. Smartphone technology offers an opportunity to address these challenges using large, multi-year datasets that capture individual symptoms and exposures in real time. We aimed to characterise associations between six pollen types and respiratory symptoms logged by users of the AirRater smartphone app in Tasmania, Australia. We analyzed 44,820 symptom reports logged by 2272 AirRater app users in Tasmania over four years (2015-2019). With these data we evaluated associations between daily respiratory symptoms and atmospheric pollen concentrations. We implemented Poisson regression models, using the case time series approach designed for app-sourced data. We assessed potentially non-linear and lagged associations with (a) total pollen and (b) six individual pollen taxa. We adjusted for seasonality and meteorology and tested for interactions with particulate air pollution (PM2.5). We found evidence of non-linear associations between total pollen and respiratory symptoms for up to three days following exposure. For total pollen, the same-day relative risk (RR) increased to 1.31 (95% CI: 1.26-1.37) at a concentration of 50 grains/m3 before plateauing. Associations with individual pollen taxa were also non-linear with some diversity in shapes. For all pollen taxa the same-day RR was highest. The interaction between total pollen and PM2.5 was positive, with risks associated with pollen significantly higher in the presence of high concentrations of PM2.5. Our results support a non-linear response between airborne pollen and respiratory symptoms. The association was strongest on the day of exposure and synergistic with particulate air pollution. The associations found with Dodonaea and Myrtaceae highlight the need to further investigate the role of Australian native pollen types in allergic respiratory disease.

Xylem function and growth rate interact to determine recovery rates after exposure to extreme water deficit.

• Motivated by the urgent need to understand how water stress-induced embolism limits the survival and recovery of plants during drought, the linkage between water-stress tolerance and xylem cavitation resistance was examined in one of the world's most drought resistant conifer genera, Callitris. • Four species were subjected to drought treatments of -5, -8 and -10 MPa for a period of 3-4 wk, after which plants were rewatered. Transpiration, basal growth and leaf water potential were monitored during and after drought. • Lethal water potential was correlated with the tension producing a 50% loss of stem hydraulic conductivity. The most resilient species suffered minimal embolism and recovered gas exchange within days of rewatering from -10 MPa, while the most sensitive species suffered major embolism and recovered very slowly. The rate of repair of water transport in the latter case was equal to the rate of basal area growth, indicating xylem reiteration as the primary means of hydraulic repair. • The survival of, and recovery from, water stress in Callitris are accurately predicted by the physiology of the stem water-transport system. As the only apparent means of xylem repair after embolism, basal area growth is a critical part of this equation.