Testing of selected phytoindicators for the environmental assessment of areas under various levels of pollution

The problem of the pollution of environment with suspended particles has been very signi cant over the recent years [14]. Thus be er and be er ways were sought to monitor the pollutants, which are often transported from large distances e.g. from abroad, which additionally makes their identi cation more di cult. The composition of suspended particles originating from industrial and urban emission is di erentiated, thus their impact on soil and vegetation is various. Trace metals make one of the main elements of suspended particles. Deposition of metals can be measured by many methods; however the majority of them are very expensive and time-consuming, which limits the number of check points. The alternative can be environmental biomonitoring. Its general advantages are: common occurrence of selected groups of organisms in the eld, the easiness of sampling, no necessity of using complicated and expensive equipment [13]. The analysis of chemical composition of plants in many aspects shows the advantage compared to traditional studies on soil or water samples. It has been proved that it makes a useful tool at the assessment of environmental quality and management [3]. The best method to measure the content of harmful elements in the environment and the threat they pose to living organisms is the measurement of the concentration of these substances in these organisms [4]. Good indicators of pollution with metals are some species of vascular plants [2, 5, 10, 11, 12, 15], and in particular bryophytes (mosses) [2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17]. Bryophytes have been described in literature as being able to intercept, retain and accumulate pollutants. They have bioconcentration ability to accumulate metals to levels far above their expected physiological needs. Metal biomonitoring with mosses was rst used by Ruling and Tyler in the late 1960s. Survey of heavy metals in