Environmental Bioindication using Some Morphometric and Physiological Parameters of Plants| Biomed Grid

The work aims at assessing the quality of the environment in the city of Kazan (Russian Federation) through the study of such indicators as the fluctuating asymmetry (FA), the chlorophyll content, and the delayed chlorophyll fluorescence in the leaves of birch (Betula pendula). We collected the samples at 21 sites within the city with high levels of anthropogenic stress. In the study, we evaluated the morphometric parameters of the leaf lamina (on the basis of these parameters, we later determined the level of fluctuating asymmetry), the content of photosynthetic pigments in the leaves, as well as the delayed chlorophyll fluorescence and the acetone extract from the leaves. According to data obtained by using the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, we found a statistically significant inverse correlation between the fluctuating asymmetry and the delayed-fluorescence average intensity measured for the leaves in low-light mode (DFlow). Additionally, using the Shapiro–Wilk criterion, we found that the content of carotenoids in the leaves is normally distributed. For this reason, we employed nonparametric methods for statistical data processing.