A dam of a red sludge reservoir had ruptured on October 4, 2010 in Hungary and a mixture of 1 million m3 red sludge and water inundated two villages via the Torna stream. The industrial waste wiped out all detectable forms of life in the Torna stream, mainly due to its high pH value (pH 12.8). To study the fungal colonization leaves, Fagus sylvatica, Quercus cerris, Populus nigra, and Salix alba leaf litter were used as baits at two sites of the Torna stream. The leaves were sampled at seven occasions between February and June 2011 and a total of 26 aquatic hyphomycetes were revealed. Tricladium sp., Heliscus lugdunensis, and Tetracladium marchalianum were the dominant species at the impacted site. The total number of fungal species was lower at the impacted than at the reference site. The peak number of species associated with leaf litter was achieved later at the impacted site. Fungal species richness between leaf‐species at the two sites was compared by Fisher's exact test. Gypsum, which was dispersed into the stream in order to reduce the alkalinity, formed a layer on the leaves. Its effect for fungal colonization is discussed.
The thoracic fraction of road dust (PM10) was measured for the first time in Portugal in parking areas, both outdoors and indoors, with the aim of completing existing studies carried out in active lanes of various roads. An in situ resuspension chamber was used to collect a total of 23 samples in three parking areas of Aveiro, whilst the laboratory procedures included determination of carbonaceous content (OC and EC) by a thermo-optical technique, elemental composition by ICP-MS and ICP-OES after acid digestion, and the Aliivribrio fisherii bioluminescent bacteria ecotoxicity bioassay. Dust loadings (DL10) obtained were 18.5 ± 9.8 mg PM10 m−2, in outdoor parking, and 1.8–23.7 mg PM10 m−2 for indoor parking, corresponding to emission factors of 476 and 75–589 mg veh−1 km−1, respectively. OC represented 9–30 % of PM10 for the indoor parking areas. However, for the outdoor samples, the high iron oxide content jeopardised the OC-EC separation. In those samples, carbonates accounted for 10.0 ± 3.3% of the PM10 mass. The analysis of elemental components focused on major elements (Al, Ca, Fe, K, and Mg) as well as minor elements. The total mass fraction of element oxides accounted for 27.1% (outdoor) and 23.6–34.3% (indoor). ΣPAH calculated for all parking areas accounted for 8.38–36.9 μg g−1 PM10. The ecotoxicological bioassay showed that all aqueous solutions were toxic to bioluminescent bacteria, whereas no clear correlations could be made with specific component groups, with the exception of ΣPAH and EC50.
Biomonitors are considered a cheap alternative of active air samplers, especially where spatial pattern of air quality is to be monitored, requiring numerous parallel measurements. Of higher plants, Plantago lanceolata L. has been proven a good monitor species with proper accumulation capacity. While biomonitoring studies are difficult to compare due to inherent errors such as the diverse plant material used in different studies, the No. 227 OECD GUIDELINE FOR THE TESTING OF CHEMICALS: Terrestrial Plant Test: Vegetative Vigour Test provides a tool to test extract of aerosol samples under controlled laboratory conditions. In our study, this guideline was followed to experimentally treat Plantago with the aqueous extract of a diesel exhaust sample. Accumulation pattern of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) was assessed and compared to samples collected in the field. Unlike most studies reported in the literature, both in the experimentally treated and field Plantago samples, high ratio of high molecular weight PAHs was experienced. Distribution pattern of accumulated PAHs showed strong correlation between the experimentally treated sample and most of the field plantain samples, underlying the usefulness of laboratory treatments for bioaccumulation studies.
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