Potenciais impactos de poluentes do ar sobre a biodiversidade urbana: uma abordagem em plantas da família Myrtaceae

Abstract

This research had as general objective, to study the impacts of air pollution originating from vehicle traffic on the flora in an urbanized environmental gradient. The data were obtained in areas of high and low traffic flow of vehicles, in urban areas. In situ plants were selected according to the environments. A third environment was stipulated, for the control plants in rural area, free of vehicular traffic. The circulation of vehicles in each environment was evaluated in order to verify the effects under the plants. Leaf symmetry indexes were calculated, as were the size of flower buds, fruits and seeds. The micronucleus test was performed in the tetrad stage in a very standardized way. We also performed systematic observations of the best floral button spot for pollen viability, and the best pH value for germination of pollen grains under different environmental conditions. The data of the evaluated parameters (or variables) were grouped by plant species and environments, and tested when normal using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Analysis of factorial variance (ANOVA), followed by the Tukey test, were used to verify differences in the variables (Systat 10.2). The leaf symmetry presented variation between the environments (p <0.05), indicating effect of air pollution. In the analysis of floral morphometry, the plants decreased parts of the reproductive structures (p <0.05) in an environment with greater circulation of vehicles. On the other hand, parts of flower buds were also increased in a polluted environment (p> 0.05). Such effect extends to pollen grain mother cells, with a higher frequency of micronuclei (p <0.05) in a high intensity environment of vehicular traffic. The effects of air pollution were even greater on the physiological processes of pollen viability and germination of pollen grains, as well as the length of the pollen tube (p <0.05). Likewise, fruits, seeds and root length had reduced sizes in environments with greater vehicular traffic circulation (p <0.05). However, one of the species presents fruits and number of seeds larger in urban area (p <0.05). Therefore, in the results, the three plants of the family Myrtaceae, can be considered bioindicating plants or biosensors because they present alterations in the morphological structures, potentially physiological, and genetic when exposed to different levels of pollution, from vehicular traffic in urbanized areas.