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. 2022 Apr 13;19(8):4706.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19084706.

Is Active Moss Biomonitoring Comparable to Air Filter Standard Sampling?

Paweł Świsłowski  1 , Arkadiusz Nowak  1   2 , Stanisław Wacławek  3 , Zbigniew Ziembik  4 , Małgorzata Rajfur  4
Affiliations

Is Active Moss Biomonitoring Comparable to Air Filter Standard Sampling?

Paweł Świsłowski et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Recently, significant attention has been paid to air quality awareness and its impact on human health, especially in urban agglomerations. Many types of dust samplers for air quality monitoring are used by governmental environmental monitoring agencies. However, these techniques are associated with high costs; as a consequence, biological methods such as active moss biomonitoring are being developed. The main disadvantages of such techniques are the lack of standardization of the preparation procedures and the lack of reliable comparisons of results with data from instrumental analyses. Our study aimed to compare the results obtained from active biomonitoring with the use of three moss species: Pleurozium schreberi, Sphagnum fallax and Dicranum polysetum. Samples were exposed via the moss-bag technique to measure the concentrations of analytes (Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, Cd, Hg and Pb) which had accumulated among the total suspended particulates (TSP) collected from the filters of a dust collector in the city of Opole (Opole voivodeship, Poland). With regard to the physicochemical and biological traits of the mosses, their assessed lifetime and actual photochemical efficiency (yield) following exposure were meagre, which may have been related to the change of environment and their exposure to pollutants. When comparing the results obtained by the two methods used to monitor air pollution, the biomonitoring method was found to be incompletely consistent with the reference method. Biological monitoring using mosses must be carefully considered depending on the monitoring objectives, the required level of sensitivity and quality of measurement and the type of pollutant.

Keywords: biomonitoring; heavy metals; mosses; total suspended particulate (TSP).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Daily TSP mass changes during the first (blue triangles), second (yellow dots) and third months (black squares) of sample collections in filters. The differences in the duration and daily sampling of the TSP filters were due to breaks associated with the Christmas and New Year holidays and a technical fault with the dust collector pump lasting 14 days.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Elemental concentrations (mg/kg d.m.) of (a) manganese, (b) iron, (c) copper, (d) zinc, (e) cadmium, (f) mercury and (g) lead in the mosses after the first (white), second (white with stripes) and third (black with dots) month of exposure. Elemental concentrations determined in mosses prior to exposure are presented in Supplementary Materials, Table S1.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Elemental concentrations (mg/kg d.m.) of (a) manganese, (b) iron, (c) copper, (d) zinc, (e) cadmium, (f) mercury and (g) lead in the mosses after the first (white), second (white with stripes) and third (black with dots) month of exposure. Elemental concentrations determined in mosses prior to exposure are presented in Supplementary Materials, Table S1.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Cluster analysis of heavy metals in three moss species and in filter TSP.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Changes in actual photochemical quantum yield (PQY) with duration of exposure (whiskers indicate a standard deviation).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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