Contaminación Urbana por Material Particulado y su Efecto sobre las Características Morfo-Anatómicas de Cuatro Especies Arbóreas de Santiago de Chile

Abstract

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el efecto de la contaminación sobre cuatro especies arbóreas urbanas sometidas a concentraciones diferentes de material particulado. El material particulado es el contaminante atmosférico que supera más frecuentemente la norma en las ciudades chilenas afectando la salud humana y ambiental. En este contexto, se estudiaron características morfo-anatómicas de las hojas de las especies Quillaja saponaria, Schinus molle, Olea europaea y Melia azedarach presentes en tres áreas de estudio expuestas a diferentes concentraciones del contaminante. El análisis estadístico mostró diferencias significativas en la densidad de estomas abaxial de Quillaja saponaria y Melia azedarach y en el ancho de estomas abaxial de Quillaja saponaria entre los sitios estudiados. Los resultados podrían evidenciar un efecto negativo del contaminante sobre el funcionamiento biológico de los árboles. Esto debe constituir una alerta para las autoridades respecto de los criterios necesarios para seleccionar las especies arbóreas para vegetar la ciudad de Santiago.

Macro-Morphological Traits of Leaves for Urban Tree Selection for Air Pollution Biomonitoring: A Review

“…In this study, 64.0% of the documents detected reported LA and SLA (e.g., [ 58 , 59 , 60 ]). However, the use of these LMTs was also evidenced in studies on ecosystem benefits [ 1 , 6 , 61 ], determination of photosynthetic levels [ 62 ], and urban soil fertility [ 63 ]. It was also observed that in recent years the citation frequency for LA increased significantly compared to the other LMTs detected [ 64 , 65 ] ( Figure 2 ).…”

“…Some researchers [ 16 , 17 ] suggested that the previous trend was a response to urban pressures and that this varied with the tree species considered. Thus, the findings suggest that the identification of these variations in leaf traits may have a significant influence during the selection of tree species for the urban air pollution monitoring [ 1 , 58 , 65 ]. During the PM 2.5 study, other leaf traits were also reported that allowed a better understanding of its retention by urban trees, including trichomes and stomatal density [ 14 , 71 ].…”

“…Trees in urban areas provide different ecosystem benefits such as air quality improvement, oxygen production, carbon sequestration, climate regulation, noise reduction, and ecological enrichment [ 1 ]. Trees also contribute to the health and psychological well-being of human communities [ 2 ].…”

Native trees provide more benefits than exotic trees when ecosystem services are weighted in Santiago, Chile

“…Finally, tree selection for urban forests demands an evaluation of environmental "disservice" (Nowak and Dwyer 2007;Lyytimäki et al 2008;Lyytimäki and Sipilä 2009;Dobbs et al 2011), not included in the present study. In Santiago, two types of environmental tree disservices have been recognized as important: the emission of allergen pollen (Mardones et al 2011;Criollo et al 2016) and that of volatile organic compounds (VOC) (Préndez et al 2013;Egas et al 2018). Although evidence is scarce for most of the tree species in Santiago city, studies have recognized exotic tree species as more disadvantageous than native trees.…”

“…Indeed, pollen of exotic trees is known to be highly allergenic to Santiago's inhabitants (e.g., Platanus spp., Populus spp.) and VOC emissions (e.g., Acacia dealbata, Betula pendula Roth, Melia azedarach L., Olea europaea L., Prunus spp., Robinia pseudoacacia L.) (Préndez et al 2013(Préndez et al , 2014Criollo et al 2016;Egas et al 2018).…”