This study presents the results of a Europe-wide training and Quality Control (QC) exercise carried out within the framework of the European Aerobiology Society’s QC Working Group. The main aim of this exercise was to examine the feasibility of carrying out a QC exercise for fungal spore monitoring in Europe, using a similar methodology to the one previously used for pollen. The QC survey was conducted in two parts: (1) Coordinators of national and regional aerobiological networks in Europe involved in the monitoring of atmospheric fungal spores were invited to complete a questionnaire survey related to their network and asked whether they were interested in taking part in an external inter-laboratory QC exercise; (2) Participating networks performed an inter-laboratory ring test with the same sample slide in order to determine the reproducibility of identifying and counting two fungal spore taxa (Alternaria and Epicoccum) in air samples collected by a Hirst-type volumetric spore trap. Participants were instructed to read five separate longitudinal transects in the “effective collecting area” of the slide. Reproducibility of analysis was determined following the method previously used in the European Aerobiology Society’s QC exercises for pollen. Thirty-two counters from 16 national or regional networks in Europe participated in the QC exercise. Coefficients of Variation (CV%) ranged from 23.0 to 22.5 when reading one transect and from 14.0 to 16.0 when reading five transects for Alternaria and Epicoccum, respectively. Considering a CV% of 30 as the limit for fungal spores, no significant differences were observed between the absolute errors from two, three, four and five transects. The only significant difference was between one and five transects. We recommend that fungal spore analysis should be carried out on about 5% of the slide (two transects in this study) because results were not significantly different to five transects.

这项研究介绍了在欧洲航空生物学学会的QC工作组框架内进行的全欧洲培训和质量控制（QC）练习的结果。这项工作的主要目的是研究使用与以前用于花粉的方法相似的方法在欧洲进行QC行为以监测真菌孢子的可行性。质量控制调查分为两个部分：（1）邀请欧洲国家和地区航空生物学网络协调员参与大气真菌孢子的监测，以完成与其网络有关的问卷调查，并询问他们是否有兴趣参加外部实验室间质量控制活动；由Hirst型体积孢子阱收集的空气样品中的交链孢菌和Epicoccum）。指示参与者在幻灯片的“有效收集区域”中阅读五个单独的纵向样条。分析的可重复性是根据欧洲航空生物学学会花粉质量控制练习中先前使用的方法确定的。来自欧洲16个国家或地区网络的32个柜台参加了质量控制活动。读取一个断面，并且当从14.0到16.0读取五个断面时变化（CV％）的系数为23.0〜22.5范围孢和附球菌， 分别。以CV％30作为真菌孢子的极限，在两个，三个，四个和五个样线的绝对误差之间未观察到显着差异。唯一的显着差异是一到五个样线之间。我们建议对大约5％的玻片进行真菌孢子分析（本研究中为两个样带），因为结果与五个样带没有显着差异。