Biomonitoring of airborne Cu, Pb, and Zn in an urban area employing a broad leaved and a conifer tree species

Leaves of trees and shrubs as bioindicators of air pollution by particulate matter in Saint Petersburg

“…Comparison of our data with the data of other researchers yielded the following results: for a number of evergreen plant species in Palermo (Italy) (Olivia et al 2004), the percentage of washout for Cr is similar to ours, but for other elements we have much higher rates. In the city of Amman (Jordan), the washout for Pb, Cd, Zn, Cu is higher for Pinus eldarica than ours (Al-Alawi et al 2007), and for Bojnourd (Iran) washing the leaves for Fraxinus excelsior removed of Cu, Zn, Pb about 20-46% (Solgi et al 2020) which is similar to our data. Probably, these indicators depend both on species features and on the degree of air pollution in these cities.…”

Assessment of metals in PM10 filters and Araucaria heterophylla needles in two areas of Quito, Ecuador

“…The highest concentrations were also observed for Ca, Mg, K, Al and Fe in the PM 10 filters (see Table 3). Similar sequence for metal accumulation was also obtained in works using biomonitors such as mosses (Lazo et al, 2019;Stafilov et al, 2018;Steinnes et al, 2016), pine needles (Brown et al, 2017) and lichen (Bergamaschi et al, 2007). Ca, Mg and K are macronutrients considered essential for plant metabolism and therefore are part of the tissue composition (Fern andez and Carballeira, 2000).…”

“…This was attributed to the fact that the recollection of PM filters was over a 24-h period, while leaves present a long-term effect. However, in the present work, taking into account frequent high precipitation events in Quito throughout the year, the lower concentration of anthropogenic metals in the Araucaria heterophylla needles could be mainly due to a wash effect of the rain that contribute to eliminate metals retained in the wax layer (Çelik et al, 2005; Al-Alawi and Mandiwana, Solgi et al, 2020;De Nicola et al, 2008). Roberts (1972) indicated that the retention of pollutants in plant leaves depends largely upon the physical, rather than the chemical, state of the pollutant and the physical form of the vegetation, and the wash effect is different depending of the plant species (Little, 1973;Moraghan, 1991;Rossini and Vald es, 2004).…”

“…The mean concentrations of Cr, Cu, Zn, Fe and Ca show statistically significant differences between monitoring stations, with S1 being the site with the highest concentration of these metals (Table 8). As mentioned above, Cr, Cu and Zn are largely associated with traffic emissions (Al-Alawi and Mandiwana, 2007;Solgi et al, 2020). Thus, the higher concentration of these metals at site S1 could be due to higher traffic flux than at site S2.…”

“…High-volume air samplers are a conventional monitoring technique, which allow to collect PM on a filter and perform the chemical analysis later (Gonz alez et al, 2018;Morera-G omez et al, 2018;Ramírez et al, 2018). On the other hand, the use of plants to identify changes in environmental quality is an ideal low-cost alternative ( Avila et al, 2019;Illi et al, 2017;Solgi et al, 2020;Turkyilmaz et al, 2018a). The ability of plants to assimilate trace metals from the surrounding atmosphere and bioaccumulate them in their tissues has made plants the most suitable biological air monitors (Sevik et al, 2019;Turkyilmaz et al, 2018b).…”