Biomonitoring Air Pollutants With Plants

Air pollution is ubiquitous in industrialized societies, causing a host of environmental problems. It is thus essential to monitor and reduce pollution levels. A number of plant species already are being exploited as detectors (for phytomonitoring) and as scavengers (for phytoremediation) of air pollutants. With advances in biotechnology, it is now feasible to modify plants for a wider range of phytomonitoring and phytoremediation applications. Air Pollution and Plant Biotechnology presents recent results in this field, including plant responses during phytomonitoring, pollution-resistant plant species, imaging diagnosis of plant responses, and the use of novel transgenic plants, along with reviews of basic plant physiology and biochemistry where appropriate. Researchers and students working in plant biotechnology and the environmental sciences or considering new areas of investigation will find this volume a valuable reference.

New Paradigms in Environmental Biomonitoring Using Plants highlights and explores the importance of biomonitoring methodologies and the latest updates in the field. The book presents a holistic approach toward the different aspects of biomonitoring, focusing mainly upon the inclusion of newly emerging concepts of environmental genomics, metabarcoding, and cheminformatics and biomarkers, among other technologies; helping to explore and establish a new outlook for biomonitoring frameworks. This book compiles all aspects of biomonitoring including traditional and modern techniques, using a multidimensional approach without focusing on any specific pollutant. Most biomonitoring programs implemented until now have focused more on traditional methods. This book covers new approaches to biomonitoring that could improve on the currently limited capabilities of existing schemes. The book highlights the possible scope for enriching existing datasets and characterizing biodiversity in situ in a far more complete way than has been possible previously. New Paradigms in Environmental Biomonitoring Using Plants will be important for researchers, academics, postgraduates and undergraduate students in environmental, plant, crop and soil sciences, to provide up-to-date and emerging technologies in biomonitoring for environmental assessment, leading to a new vision of biomonitoring. It will also be helpful for risk assessment professionals and stakeholders involved in planning the future biomonitoring programs. Forms a cohesive source of information for technologies of use in environmental monitoring. Discusses newly emerging techniques in biomonitoring, including cutting-edge advances in ecology and genomics. Covers current biomonitoring concepts and programs, and also includes a holistic approach for biomonitoring.

This book focuses upon air pollution, types of air pollutants and their impact on plant physiological and biochemical systems. The book begins with a brief background on air pollution and continues with a discussion on different types, effects, and solutions to the pollution. The chapters that follow, explore the different effects of pollution on chloroplasts, respiration, biochemistry and physiology of plant cells. Moreover, it covers the basic concepts of atmospheric transport and transformations of pollutants, and issues of global change and the use of science in air pollution policy formulation. It also emphasises about the effects of air pollutants in altering plant response to common stresses, both abiotic and biotic - fields by giving the focus on the physiology of plant. This book act as a valuable tool for students in Environmental Science, Biological Science and Agriculture. It will be unique to environmental consultants, researchers and other professionals involved in air quality and plant related research. During past few decades, air pollution and poor air quality have been the issues of common concerns. Degraded air has adverse effects on various system of plants by creating a stress which develops biochemical and physiological disorder in plants. Chronic diseases and/or lower yield have reported consequences of air pollution effect. A large number of biochemical and physiological parameters have been used to assess impact of air pollution on plant health. Photosynthetic machinery and respiratory system are the most affected domain of plants. However, the survival of plants depend on various internal and external factors such as plant community, types of air pollutants, geographical region, meteorological conditions and soil moisture etc. Plants respond to both biotic and abiotic stresses accordingly. Many tolerant plants survive easily even in higher air pollution region. Certain plant species absorbs selected gaseous air pollutants and hence plants are effective tool for air pollution remediation.

Proceedings of the International Workshop, Osnabrück (FRG), 24-25 September, 1981

With its unique collection of case studies, this book provides detailed coverage of metal biomonitoring and bioremediation in terrestrial ecosystems using higher plants, lichens, mosses and fungi. Emphasis is placed on application rather than theory. It gives an exhaustive account of the most reliable procedures for sampling, sample preparation, analytical determinations and interpretation of data. Using an ecophysiological approach, metal uptake by plants and metal transfer along terrestrial food chains are examined.

Air pollution has been recognised as the worlds top problem in many strategic environmental policies. However, it is still inadequately corroborated by regulatory monitoring due to the balance between costs and practicable constraints. The variability in air pollution patterns additionally emphasises a need for feasible approaches to extensive screening of pollutants. To achieve highly temporally -- and spatially -- resolved measurements, biomonitoring (ie: the use of living organisms to determine changes in the environment has been utilised in the investigating of a complementary method to regulatory measurements). The book aims to give reviews of research over the last decade of the most recommended organisms for monitoring airborne inorganic and organic pollutants. Naturally growing mosses and lichens have been used as passive biomonitors of long-term atmospheric deposition of the pollutants across remote areas. To overcome scarcity of these biomonitors in anthropogenically devastated areas, an active biomonitoring approach has been investigated. Specifically, the use of moss and lichen bags represents a convenient technique for easily performed biomonitoring of short-term and small-scale pollutant distribution, especially in urban and industrial areas. As a new direction in biomonitoring, magnetic properties of the biomonitors have been investigated as a valuable proxy for ambient particle pollution. This book moves beyond the attempt to promote biomonitoring as an effective approach for screening air quality that should be considered for implementation into laws and regulations against air pollution. Finally, the authors review the latest research in the field of air pollution biomonitoring, which is vital for everyone engaged in solving environmental issues.