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I Międzynarodowa Konferencja Młodych Naukowców „Przyroda-Las-Technologia'" - Abstrakty

The common birch physiological condition verified in trees growing in wastes obtained after zinc and lead flotation compared with trees from other areas Ewa Muszyńska¹, Edyta Kąkol, Ewa Hanus-Fajerska

University of Agriculture in Kraków

Faculty of Horticulture

'Department of Botany and Plant Physiology

[e-mail]

As a result of industry activity dusts and gases harmful to the environment are emitted, and huge amounts of wastes are produced, thus it is included to the most important source of ecosystem contamination. Lands located in the Silesian-Cracow Upland are considerably contaminated because of mining and metallurgy of non-ferrous metals. In this region waste dumps, characterized by susceptibility to water and wind erosion, disadvantageous physico-chemical properties, elevated pH values, excess of heavy metals, and almost complete lack of nutrients, were created as a result of mining Zn-Pb ores, and their further processing operation. Numerous plant species, and among them freąuently used pioneer tree species, can efficiently perform protective function, and therefore limit further contamination of air and water resources.

It was found that anatomical features of common birch leaves can be treated as bioindicator of substrata properties, such as heavy metal contamination, nutrient level, and water availability. In the view of this results the main purpose of the present study was to compare the physiological condition of Betula pendula Roth. vegetative organs originated from clones applied to stabilize wastes disposed after lead and zinc flotation in Bukowno near Olkusz with analogous materiał taken from other research areas. Experimental plant materiał was taken in the form of leaf tissue collected from specimens growing directly on the Bukowno setting pond shelf (plot I - SPS), and in: nearby located State Forests area (plot II - SFA), over hundred year old waste heap (plot III - HWH), control University plot (plot IV - CUP). The physiological condition was evaluated by measuring the photosynthetic activity of leaves in respect to the contents of photosynthetic pigments and chlorophyll fluorescence. Additionally, the concentration of some phenolic compounds was investigated. The results will be shown, and discussed, during First International Conference “Przyroda-Las-Technologia” (“Nature-Forest-Technology”). We focused on distinct differences between the investigated objects with