The Ability of Some Aquatic and Terrestrial Plants to Purify Domestic Wastewater

The study aimed to evaluate the ability of some terrestrial and aquatic plants for wastewater purification.Aquatic plants can remove pollutants from wastewater by consuming and accumulating various contaminants in different parts of plants.Different aquatic and terrestrial plants(Rosa sinensis,Typha latifolia,Ocimm bacilicum,Azolla pinnata,and Salvinia molesta)which have the ability to decrease water pollution were utilized in this study.The capability offive different species of plants was investigated by measuring chemical oxygen demand(COD),biological oxygen demand(BOD),electrical conductivity(EC),total dissolved solids(TDS),and pH of the medium.In this research,some aquatic and terrestrial plants were transplanted in wastewater plastic pots containing domestic wastewater with different ratios of 50%and 100%.Then,after 30 days,the physiological and biochemical parameters of plants were calculated to observe the effect of wastewater on plants.Results revealed higher chlorophyll and carotenoids in typha plants treated with 100%wastewater.The highest percentage of elimination in BOD(65%),COD(27%),TDS(72%),EC(83%),and pH(6.8%)was noted with the use of typha and azolla.Intriguingly,total soluble sugars,total free amino acids,and total proteins were found maximum in the hibiscus plant as compared to the other plants under 100%and 50%domestic wastewater treatment,while typha and ocimum showed lower values of these parameters irrespective of wastewater treatments.Moreover,the COD,BOD,TDS,EC,and pH trend was higher in 100%wastewater as compared to 50%wastewater.Taking into account the accumulation capacity of the tested plants especially typha can be efficiently used for the treatment of domestic wastewater.

Effects of atmospheric gases on terrestrial plants and critical levels of air pollution

An integrated approach was developed to determine the critical levels of air pollution for ecological standard setting based on the unified index of biological response, by taking into account the effects of all pollution components simultaneously. An empirical model of plant productivity was taken as the dose response model for gaseous pollutant effect on the productivity of trees and the annual productivity of plants was used as the above mentioned index. The CO2 increase in the lower atmosphere was considered to potentially increase plant productivity and NO2 was estimated as neutral while being dangerous for plants as a chemical precursor of ozone or as a source of acidification. The maximum permissible chronic O3 and SO2 levels for trees were estimated and it was found that O3 is much more phytotoxic, as compared to SO2 , with a rather narrow range of permissible levels (27-33 ppb) which complicates its monitoring and control.

Convergent relationships between flower economics and hydraulic traits across aquatic and terrestrial herbaceous plants

Maintaining open flowers is critical for successful pollination and depends on long-term water and carbon balance.Yet the relationship between how flower hydraulic traits are coordinated in different habitats is poorly understood.Here,we hypothesize that the coordination and trade-offs between floral hydraulics and economics traits are independent of environmental conditions.To test this hypothesis,we investigated a total of 27 flower economics and hydraulic traits in six aquatic and six terrestrial herbaceous species grown in a tropical botanical garden.We found that although there were a few significant differences,most flower hydraulics and economics traits did not differ significantly between aquatic and terrestrial herbaceous plants.Both flower mass per area and floral longevity were significantly positively correlated with the time required for drying full-hydrated flowers to 70%relative water content.Flower dry matter content was strongly and positively related to drought tolerance of the flowers as indicated by flower water potential at the turgor loss point.In addition,there was a trade-off between hydraulic efficiency and the construction cost of a flower across species.Our results show that flowers of aquatic and terrestrial plants follow the same economics spectrum pattern.These results suggest a convergent flower economics design across terrestrial and aquatic plants,providing new insights into the mechanisms by which floral organs adapt to aquatic and terrestrial habitats.

Lack of Evidence for 3/4 Scaling of Metabolism in Terrestrial Plants

Scaling, as the translation of information across spatial, temporal, and organizational scales, is essential to predictions and understanding in all sciences and has become a central issue in ecology. A large body of theoretical and empirical evidence concerning allometric scaling in terrestrial individual plants and plant communities has been constructed around the fractal volume-filling theory of West, Brown, and Enquist （the WBE model）. One of the most thought-provoking findings has been that the metabolic rates of plants, like those of animals, scale with their size as a 3/4 power law. The earliest, single most-important study cited in support of the application of the WBE model to terrestrial plants claims that whole-plant resource use in terrestrial plants scales as the 3/4 power of total mass, as predicted by the WBE model. However, in the present study we show that empirical data actually do not support such a claim. More recent studies cited as evidence for 3/4 scaling also suffer from several statistical and data-related problems. Using a forest biomass dataset including 1 266 plots of 17 main forest types across China, we explored the scaling exponents between tree productivity and tree mass and found no universal value across forest stands. We conclude that there is not sufficient evidence to support the existence of a single constant scaling exponent for the metabolism-biomass relationship for terrestrial plants.

Seasonal Variations of Terrestrial OC Sources in Aerosols over the East China Sea: The Influence of Long-Range Air Mass Transport

Aerosols represent an important source of terrestrial organic carbon(OC)from the East Asian continent to the China marginal seas,thus their provenance and transport play important roles in the global carbon cycle.Fifty samples of total suspended particle were collected seasonally from the nearshore Huaniao Island(HNI)in East China Sea(ECS)from April 2018 to January 2019;and they were analyzed for total organic carbon(TOC)content and stable carbon isotope(δ^(13)C),as well as terrestrial bio-markers including n-alkanes(C_(20)-C_(33)),n-alkanols(C_(20)-C32)and n-fatty acids(n-FAs,C_(20)-C30),to distinguish the seasonal variabili-ties of terrestrial OC sources and reveal the influence of the long-range air mass transport on these sources.The TOC-δ^(13)C values(range from−27.3‰to−24.3‰)and molecular distributions of terrestrial biomarkers both suggested that terrestrial OC contribu-tions to aerosols had significant seasonal variations.The source indices of terrestrial biomarkers(e.g.,Fossil%=82.8%for n-alkanes)revealed that the fossil fuel OC contributions,including coal burning and vehicular emission,were higher in winter,mainly because of the long-range air mass transport from the north of the East Asian continent.The terrestrial plant OC contributions were higher in summer(e.g.,Wax%=32.4%for n-alkanes),likely due to local vegetation sources from HNI and East Asian continental air masses.Cluster analysis of air mass backward-trajectories clearly showed that transport pathway plays an important role in determining the organic constituents of aerosols in China marginal seas.A comparison of these terrestrial OC contributions from different air mass origins suggested that fossil fuel OC showed less variations among various air mass origins from northern China in winter,while terrestrial plant OC sources from northern and southern China in summer contributed more than that from the air masses transported through the ECS.These results provided a basis for future quantification of terrestrial OC from different origins in marine aerosols,by combining biomarker index and carbon isotopes.

Comparison of different chain n-fatty acids in modern plants on the Loess Plateau of China

n-Fatty acids(n-FAs)are widely investigated in lake sediments,yet less attention has been given to soil sedimentary n-FAs primarily derived from terrestrial plants.In this study,we performed an analysis of n-FA distributions in modern plants on the Loess Plateau,China.It showed that n-FAs were generally dominated by n-C16,and that short-chain(C16-C20),medium-chain(C22-C26)and long-chain(C28-C32)n-FAs accounted for 49.7%,33.7%and 16.6%,respectively.The LTR(long-chain/total ratio),and medium-chain EOP(even/odd predominance)are likely to differentiate between dicots and monocots in modern plants.It is believed that this study will promote the paleo-application of soil sedimentary n-FAs on the Loess Plateau.