Survey of changes in lichen bioindicator, Lecanora mularis, in exposure to different concentrations of sulfur dioxide

Subject Areas : environmental management

Mohammad Reza Khani ¹ , Mohammad Sadegh Sekhavatjoo ² , Nematolah Khorasan ³ , Golaleh Shahabpour ⁴

1 - Assistant professor, department of environmental health, Tehran medical sciences branch, Islamic Azad university, Tehran, Iran
2 - Assistant professor, PhD of environmental engineering, department of environmental engineering (air pollution), science and research campus, Islamic Azad university, Khuzestan, Iran
3 - Professor, PhD of forestry, faculty of environment and energy, science and research campus, Islamic Azad university, Tehran, Iran.
4 - M.Sc. of environmental engineering -air pollution, Tehran medical sciences branch, Islamic Azad university, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2010-01-09 Accepted : 2010-07-20 Published : 2015-09-23

Keywords: Bioindicator, Lichen, sulfur dioxide, air pollution monitoring,

Abstract :

Background: Sulfur dioxide as one of the important gas pollutants has an irreparable impact onplants, animals and objects; therefore this monitoring and control is important. Biological indicators asair pollutants indicators, are appropriate conductive in order to air pollution control in urban andindustrial environments. Lichens are one of the bioindicators that are used in this case.Material and methods: Therefore, survey of efficiency and effectiveness biomonitoring of SO2 withuse of lichen, Lecanora mularis, was considered. In this research, Lecanora was placed into the specialbags and exposed with 40, 100 and 200 ppb SO2 for three hours. Then chlorophyll determination (chla, chl b and chl a+b) and ratio of OD 435/415 was measured by extracting of 20 mg net weight oflichen in 10 ml DMSO.Results: Thus, the average of chlorophyll determination (chl a, chl b) in control and exposed samplesto SO2 was 94.1% and 77.3%, respectively; and there was a direct relationship between determinationand pollutant's concentration, in all cases.Conclusion: So, in order to high sensivity of lichens to uptake the SO2, monitoring and indicating theexistence and absence of sulfur dioxide in air is possible, thus this monitoring is one of the mosteffective and applicable approach.

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