RUDN University environmentalists have found a sensitive indicator for assessing the quality of the environment in the city. It turned out that microorganisms on the surface of leaves can tell a lot about the state of the environment. The results are published in Plants.
A correct assessment of the ecological state in the city helps to make timely and correct decisions in order to protect humans and environment. This requires accurate and sensitive indicators that will make it possible to judge the state of the components of the environment. RUDN ecologists have shown that the state of microorganisms on the surface of leaves is such a sensitive indicator. Plants, or rather their vital activity, have an impact on the air around them. The most significant part of it is the surface of the leaves. It is on the surface of the leaves that numerous microorganisms live, which determine the interaction of plants with the environment and at the same time depend on it themselves.
“In the city, fine dust accumulates on plants, in which many microorganisms live. In our study, we tested how the distance from the source of pollution, the road, affects the dust microbiome from the surface of the leaves. As microbial indicators, we chose the most informative ones: the taxonomic diversity of microscopic fungi and bacteria, their activity and the number of opportunistic forms,” Kristina Ivashchenko, PhD, researcher at Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science and RUDN University.
RUDN ecologists studied the leaves of the birch Betula pendula in Moscow at a distance of 2 to 50 meters from the highway. The most sensitive to the proximity of the road were Pseudomonas bacteria and fungi Dothiora sorbi and Exobasidium miyabei. The presence or absence of a particular group of microorganisms does not in itself characterize the quality of the environment, but in combination with information about the activity and pathogenicity of the microbial community, it can be a useful tool in environmental assessment. The work shows that closer to the road, the activity and pathogenicity of microorganisms increases, and their taxonomic diversity decreases.
“We found that the change in microbial parameters is associated with an increased content of zinc in roadside dust, its high concentrations can be toxic to living organisms. In addition, an additional factor is unfavorable microclimatic conditions, which are usually formed in open areas near roads: low humidity, high air temperature and high levels of ultraviolet radiation,” Maria Korneikova, PhD in Biology, Senior Researcher at the Smart Urban Nature Laboratory of RUDN University.
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