Macro-Morphological Traits of Leaves for Urban Tree Selection for Air Pollution Biomonitoring: A Review

Abstract

Urban trees provide different ecosystem benefits, such as improving air quality due to the retention of atmospheric particulate matter (PM) on their leaves. The main objective of this paper was to study, through a systematic literature review, the leaf macro-morphological traits (LMTs) most used for the selection of urban trees as air pollution biomonitors. A citation frequency index was used in scientific databases, where the importance associated with each variable was organized by quartiles (Q). The results suggest that the most biomonitored air pollutants by the LMTs of urban trees were PM between 1–100 µm (Q1 = 0.760), followed by O3 (Q2 = 0.586), PM2.5 (Q2 = 0.504), and PM10 (Q3 = 0.423). PM was probably the most effective air pollutant for studying and evaluating urban air quality in the context of tree LMTs. PM2.5 was the fraction most used in these studies. The LMTs most used for PM monitoring were leaf area (Q1) and specific leaf area (Q4). These LMTs were frequently used for their easy measurement and quantification. In urban areas, it was suggested that leaf area was directly related to the amount of PM retained on tree leaves. The PM retained on tree leaves was also used to study other f associated urban air pollutants associated (e.g., heavy metals and hydrocarbons).

Morphometric characters of Platanus × acerifolia (Aiton) Willd. leaves under the heterogeneous urban environments in the Republic of Srpska

“…Banja Luka and Prijedor were characterized by the maximal average values of most traits of the leaf blade samples. Such data can be explained by the effects of most common aero pollutants, including CO, SO 2 , NO 2 , PM 10 on the morphological traits of the leaves of urban trees (Corada et al, 2021;Rodríguez-Santamaría et al, 2022). Data taken from the Hydrometeorological Institute of the Republic of Srpska showed that average annual concentration of main air pollutants did not exceed maximal annual values, except Doboj, where concentration of particulate matter was above the limit level in 2019 when the samples were collected.…”