Airborne Microbial Pathogens in Poultry: Transmission Pathways, Pathogenic Mechanisms, and Advanced Detection Strategies

The intensification of poultry production has heightened concern over aerosolized microbial pathogens that traverse barn microclimates, ventilation systems, and surrounding environments. Bioaerosols, dust particles, and droplets can harbor viruses, bacteria, and fungi capable of surviving transport, evading host defenses, and initiating infection, thereby impacting flock health, productivity, biosecurity and even poultry farm workers. Airborne transmission also complicates control of antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic spillover risk at the animal–human–environment interface. Advances in aerobiology, high-resolution genomics, and real-time sensing now offer new opportunities to quantify pathogen load, viability, and dispersal, while integrative field, laboratory, and modeling studies can illuminate the drivers and consequences of airborne spread. This collection aims to consolidate cutting-edge evidence that informs surveillance, risk assessment, and intervention design squarely within the remit of infectious agents and disease dynamics in animal hosts.This Research Topic focuses on elucidating pathogenic mechanisms that enable microbial survival, aerosolization, colonization in avian hosts and infections to farm workers; mapping transmission pathways across housing systems, bioaerosols, dust, and ventilation plumes; and advancing rapid, sensitive detection and source-tracking methods for airborne microorganisms. We welcome contributions that link particle physics with microbiology, investigate dose–response relationships and host susceptibility, vaccination, and management practices. Studies that integrate culture-based methods with PCR, metagenomics, biosensors, viability and infectivity assays, and computational modeling are particularly encouraged. Work spanning experimental and translational approaches are welcome to the collection. Submissions related to, but not limited by, the topics listed below are welcomed.• Mechanistic studies of aerosolization, persistence, and host colonization for poultry pathogens (viral, bacterial, fungal)• Characterization of bioaerosol particle size distributions and pathogen viability under farm-relevant conditions• Source attribution and transmission mapping using genomics modeling• Development and validation of rapid air sampling, biosensors, PCR, and CRISPR-based detection for airborne pathogens• Metagenomic and meta transcriptomic profiling of poultry house air to resolve community structure and functional potential• Dose–response and infectious dose quantification for airborne exposure in poultry• Environmental and management drivers of airborne spread • Antimicrobial resistance carriage and dissemination via aerosols and dust in poultry production• Field epidemiology and outbreak investigations implicating airborne pathways in flock infections• Methodological papers on viability assessment (e.g. cell culture, plaque assays) for air-sampled microbes Topic editors: Guanliu YU, Adnan Alrubaye Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/77152/airborne-microbial-pathogens-in-poultry-transmission-pathways-pathogenic-mechanisms-and-advanced-detection-strategies