ABSTRACT
The survival of marginal/peripheral silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) populations in the broader region of Southeast Europe is endangered due to climate change and population decline. This study aimed to determine the level and pattern of variability for the anatomical traits of needles and the possibility of linking the pattern of phenotypic variability with environmental factors. In most of the analyzed needle traits, the statistically significant variability between populations was determined. According to the results of the multivariate principal component analysis, it is evident that the populations are distinct from each other, in three groups. The climatic factors Hargreaves reference evaporation, mean annual temperature, and growing degree-days, were statistically significantly correlated. The altitude and heating degree-days are statistically significantly correlated with the following three environmental factors: Hargreaves reference evaporation, mean annual temperature and growing degree-days, but negatively with others. The paper's findings indicate significant moderate and high correlations between the anatomical traits of the needles' central bundle diameter with the resin duct diameter, the distance between the vascular bundle and the resin duct and the epidermis thickness with cuticle, the resin duct diameter with the distance between the vascular bundle and the resin duct and the epidermis thickness with cuticle, as well as the distance between the vascular bundle and the resin duct with the hypodermis height and the epidermis thickness with cuticle. The results of agglomerative hierarchical clustering analysis, performed for anatomical and climatic traits, confirmed the existence of three groups of tested populations according to the altitude gradient. Research results provide knowledge on the diversity and structure of Abies alba populations of Southeast Europe, important for further research and guidelines for the species' conservation and genetic variability preservation in the southern marginal distribution area and keeping in line with climate change projections.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this research was to quantify the content of hazardous elements in the needles of Norway spruce (Picea abies L.) in the natural habitats that were accumulated from thermal power plants, mines, and metal processing industry. Fifteen natural populations of the Norway spruce were sampled from the mountain ranges in Southeastern Europe (Dinaric Alps and Balkan Mountains). Two-year-old spruce needles were evaluated the content of the following hazardous elements: heavy metals cadmium, mercury, nickel, lead and zinc, and metalloid arsenic. The effect of the distance between air pollution emitters and the Norway spruce natural habitats on the hazardous elements content in needles was also evaluated. The results of the analysis of variance confirmed interpopulation differences in the content of all analyzed hazardous elements. The effect of the air pollution source (thermal power plants, mines, and industry) on the content of hazardous elements in the spruce needles was also assessed. Significant correlation was found between the distance of air pollution emitters and the amount of zinc. This study could serve as the startup point of future monitoring programs and provide new prospect of using Norway spruce needles as the bioindicator of air pollution with hazardous elements on Balkan Peninsula since the fact that the Norway spruce natural populations inhabit wide geographic range of the continental Europe, from the Balkan Peninsula, over European Alps to Scandinavia and a large-scale of altitude from 980 to 1860 m above sea level.
Subject(s)
Abies , Picea , Pinus , Anthropogenic Effects , Environmental Monitoring , Ecosystem , Norway , ZincABSTRACT
The particular significance of the whitebark pine (Pinus heldreichii Christ.) stems from the fact that it is a tertiary relict and Balkanic subendemite covering a very narrow and intermittent area in Serbia. A representative pool of 48 adult trees originating from three populations, one recently discovered natural (Population I) and two planted populations (Populations II and III) was investigated in order to evaluate the intra- and interpopulation variability of the essential oil of the complete fund of P. heldreichii in Serbia. In the pine-needle-terpene profile, 104 compounds were detected, 84 of which could be identified. Among the essential-oil constituents, monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes dominated, comprising ca. 90% of the essential oil. The terpenic profile of Population I was characterized by a predominance of monoterpenes (e.g., limonene (1), α-pinene, and Δ(3) -carene (4)), while sesquiterpenes (e.g., germacrene D (2) and ß-caryophyllene (3)) obviously preponderated in the profile of Populations II and III. This study also demonstrated that the abundance of whitebark pines in Serbia had significantly changed over the last few decades. The number of individuals in the natural population had increased, while the number of individuals in the planted populations had decreased. Today, the whitebark pine fund in Serbia comprises less than 250 trees.
