Effects of Air Pollution on Ecosystems and Biological Diversity in the Eastern United States

Abstract

Conservation organizations have most often focused on land-use change, climate change, and invasive species as prime threats to biodiversity conservation. Although air pollution is an acknowledged widespread problem, it is rarely considered in conservation planning or management. In this synthesis, the state of scientific knowledge on the effects of air pollution on plants and animals in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States is summarized. Four air pollutants (sulfur, nitrogen, ozone, and mercury) and eight ecosystem types ranging from estuaries to alpine tundra are considered. Effects of air pollution were identified, with varying levels of certainty, in all the ecosystem types examined. None of these ecosystem types is free of the impacts of air pollution, and most are affected by multiple pollutants. In aquatic ecosystems, effects of acidity, nitrogen, and mercury on organisms and biogeochemical processes are well documented. Air pollution causes or contributes to acidification of lakes, eutrophication of estuaries and coastal waters, and mercury bioaccumulation in aquatic food webs. In terrestrial ecosystems, the effects of air pollution on biogeochemical cycling are also very well documented, but the effects on most organisms and the interaction of air pollution with other stressors are less well understood. Nevertheless, there is strong evidence for effects of nitrogen deposition on plants in grasslands, alpine areas, and bogs, and for nitrogen effects on forest mycorrhizae. Soil acidification is widespread in forest ecosystems across the eastern United States and is likely to affect the composition and function of forests in acid-sensitive areas over the long term. Ozone is known to cause reductions in photosynthesis in many terrestrial plant species. For the most part, the effects of these pollutants are chronic, not acute, at the exposure levels common in the eastern United States. Mortality is often observed only at experimentally elevated exposure levels or in combination with other stresses such as drought, freezing, or pathogens. The notable exceptions are the acid/aluminum effects on aquatic organisms, which can be lethal at levels of acidity observed in many surface waters in the region. Although the effects are often subtle, they are important to biological conservation. Changes in species composition caused by terrestrial or aquatic acidification or eutrophication can propagate throughout the food webs to affect many organisms beyond those that are directly sensitive to the pollution. Likewise, sublethal 100Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences doses of toxic pollutants may reduce the reproductive success of the affected organisms or make them more susceptible to potentially lethal pathogens. Many serious gaps in knowledge that warrant further research were identified. Among those gaps are the effects of acidification, ozone, and mercury on alpine systems, effects of nitrogen on species composition of forests, effects of mercury in terrestrial food webs, interactiv...

Air Pollution and Climate Change in Lagos, Nigeria: Needs for Proactive Approaches to Risk Management and Adaptation

“…Lovett et al (2009) clearly showed that all ecosystems types are affected by the air pollution; it affects both the aquatic and terrestrial habitats, which are expected to be of benefits to man. Biodiversity in Lagos is mostly affected by the insensitive landuse changes due to the increase in population.…”

Role of Plant Leaves in Removing Airborne Dust and Associated Metals on Beijing Roadsides

“…Most developing nations have been influenced by atmospheric pollution, in terms of human health (Anderson et al, 2012), climate change (Kan et al, 2012) and loss of biodiversity (Lovett et al, 2009). With urban transport development, traffic-derived pollutants become an increasing problem (Walsh and Shah, 1997;Ning and Sioutas, 2010;Cao et al, 2015) and have been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular disease, birth and developmental defects, cancer (Hei, 2010) and so on.…”

Nitrogen deposition and prey nitrogen uptake control the nutrition of the carnivorous plant Drosera rotundifolia

“…Understanding these impacts is crucial because they can result in altered species abundance, plant community composition (Payne et al 2013) and reduced biodiversity (Stevens et al 2004). Ombrotrophic (rain fed) bogs are nutrient poor and obtain their entire N budget from deposition, making them particularly sensitive to N deposition (Bobbink et al 1998;Lovett et al 2009). Carnivorous plants are typical of ombrotrophic bogs (Givnish et al 1984) which makes them sensitive to changes in nutrient availability, for example through the effects of increased atmospheric N deposition .…”