Biomonitoring of air pollutants with plants - considerations for the future

Publication Type

Contribution to conference

Authors

De Temmerman, L., Bell, J.N.B., Garrec, J.P., Klumpp, A., Krause, G.H.M., Tonneijck, A.E.G.

Year of publication

2004

Published in

Urban Air Pollution, Bioindication and Environmental Awareness

Editor

Klumpp, A., Ansel, W., Klumpp, G.

Pubisher

Cuvillier Verlag , Göttingen

ISBN / ISSN / eISSN

3-89873-078-0

Page (from - to)

337-373

Conference name

EuroBionet 2002 Conference on Urban Air Pollution, Bioindication and Environmental Awareness

Conference location

Hohenheim

Conference date

05.11.2002

Keywords

Bioindikation, Luftschadstoff, Umweltqualität

Abstract

Biomonitoring of air pollution with plants has been a common practice for many decades. Some plant species are sensitive to specific single pollutants or to mixtures of pollutants. Those species or cultivars are likely to be used in order to monitor the effects of air pollutants as bioindicator plants. They have the great advantage to show clearly the effects of phytotoxic compounds present in ambient air. As such they are ideal for demonstration purposes. However, they can also be used to monitor temporal and spatial distributions of pollution effects. Standardisation of methods is crucial in order to develop air quality standards based on effect monitoring. More recently new methods to detect microscopic effects (e.g. mutagenicity) and biochemical disturbances have been presented and are very promising, but need to be developed further. Effects on growth and yield need a specific experimental approach, as those effects are not specific and need to be compared to ‘normal’ growth and yield. Those effects have an economic link whilst biochemical changes have implications towards food and fodder crop quality. Both effects are of increasing importance for biomonitoring work.

Many plants are useful as bioaccumulators and the choice of species depends on the aims of bio-monitoring. Is monitoring environmental pollution, as such, the main purpose or is it to study the impact on ecosystems or the transfer of pollutants to the food chain? Mosses and lichens accumulate heavy metals and other compounds very efficiently because of their large specific surface and slow growth. As such they serve mostly as passive biomonitors to provide an indication of the pollutant impact at the ecosystem level. On the other hand, field crops and vegetables can serve as an intermediate step to detect effects on food and fodder quality and safety. Bioaccumulators are not only used to measure deposits of heavy metals but also radionuclides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins and all kinds of aerosols, which can also be accumulated efficiently. In most cases plants are useful integrators of pollution burden and readily facilitate chemical analysis. As far as contaminants of food and fodder crops are concerned, they are a crucial step to evaluate the potential transfer to consumers.

Depending on the pollutant to be monitored, different scales are possible i.e. local, regional and international. The need for standardisation and calibration of methods increases with increasing scale of applications. Lack of standardisation is probably one of the major reasons why biomonitoring techniques are less used in legislation than methods based on physico-chemical monitoring. However, both techniques are complementary because physico-chemical monitors measure pollutant concentrations or deposition fluxes, whereas biomonitors reflect effects. Further standardisation and testing of methods (already developed in Germany) should be elaborated under different climatic conditions in order to make further progress towards European guidelines for biomonitoring procedures and air quality.