AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Volume 10 / Issue 3 / DOI: 10.3233/AJW-2013-10_3_08
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Effects of Re-suspended Roadside Dusts and Its  Elemental Constituents on the Phylloplane Microflora

S.S. Ram1,2,3* S. Majumder4 R.V. Kumar2 P. Chaudhuri3 S. Chanda5 S.C. Santra4 P.K. Maiti6 U.K. Mukhopadhyay7 M. Sudarshan1 A. Chakraborty1
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1 UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, III/LB-8, Salt Lake, Kolkata, India
2 Department of Material Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
3 Department of Environmental Science, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India
4 Department of Environmental Science, University of Kalyani, Nadia, India
5 Allergy & Asthma Research Centre, Kolkata, India
6 Department of Chemical Technology, University of Calcutta, Kolkata – 700073, India
7 West Bengal Pollution Control Board, Kolkata – 700098, India
AJWEP 2013, 10(3), 63–69; https://doi.org/10.3233/AJW-2013-10_3_08
Submitted: 9 December 2012 | Accepted: 31 May 2013 | Published: 1 January 2013
© 2013 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

In the present paper the effect of traffic generated dust pollution on phylloplane microflora of Polyalthia  longifolia was studied. More dust and absence of micro-flora especially fungi was observed in the leaves from roadside site unlike that of non-roadside site. Elemental profiling of dust on leaves has shown the presence of trace elements like Al, Si, Cl, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu and Zn and toxic elements like As and Hg. Presence of such elements in dust may be attributed to retardation of micro-flora on leaf surfaces exposed to traffic generated dust particulates.

Keywords
Air pollution
dust
phylloplane microflora
SEM-EDX
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing