Currently, there are no widely accepted protocols or regulations regarding biological air sampling. In the absence of standards, we believe that common sense should prevail.
Viable
We know that some bacteria and fungal spores can cause disease only when they are alive/viable
Non-Viable
while others are capable of producing allergies or irritation even when no longer living/non-viable.
While cultures may permit greater accuracy in speciating some fungal organisms present, spores vary widely in their ability to grow and compete on laboratory media. This may result in an inaccurate characterization of the area sampled.
Therefore, a complete sampling protocol for the biological flora in any environment uses both a culturable and non-culturable sampling method. There are times when this is not possible due to time and budget constraints. In these cases, we currently believe that a non-culturable spore trap sample provides a more accurate "snapshot" of the air and is usually the best choice when only one sampling method can be used.
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