Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Oct 31;13(21):3056.
doi: 10.3390/plants13213056.

Composition and Effects of Aerosol Particles Deposited on Urban Plant Leaves in Terrestrial and Aquatic Habitats

Siqi Chen  1 , Fangmin Fei  1 , Yaobin Song  1 , Ming Dong  1 , Aiping Wu  2 , Hua Yu  1
Affiliations

Composition and Effects of Aerosol Particles Deposited on Urban Plant Leaves in Terrestrial and Aquatic Habitats

Siqi Chen et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Plants play a vital role in mitigating aerosol particles and improving air quality. This study investigated the composition characteristics and potential effects of particles retained on the leaf surfaces of two amphibious plants (i.e., Alternanthera philoxeroides and Hydrocotyle vulgaris) in both terrestrial and aquatic habitats. The results show that plant habitats influenced the composition of aerosol particles retained on leaf surfaces. Specifically, plants in terrestrial habitats retained a higher mass concentration of coarse and large particles rich in inorganic Ca2+, accounting for over 70% of total ions, whereas plants in aquatic habitats retained a greater abundance of fine and secondary particles with high fractions of water-soluble NO3- and SO42-, taking up over 65% of total anions. Secondary particles deposited on the surfaces of plants in aquatic habitats tend to deliquesce and transform from the particle phase to the liquid phase. Terrestrial habitats facilitate the deposition of large particles. Additionally, particle accumulation on leaf surfaces adversely affected the stomatal conductance of plant leaves, leading to reductions in both the transpiration and photosynthetic rates. This study provides insights into the impact and role of plants from different habitats in mitigating urban particulate pollution.

Keywords: aerosol particles; amphibious plants; leaf functional traits; particle deposition; terrestrial and aquatic habitats.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The mass concentrations and number densities of fine particles (a,e), coarse particles (b,f), large particles (c,g), and the TSP (d,h) retained on the adaxial and abaxial leaves of Alternanthera philoxeroides and Hydrocotyle vulgaris in the terrestrial habitats (green bar) and aquatic habitats (blue bar), respectively. The data are presented as the Mean ± SE. *—p < 0.05; **—p < 0.01; ***—p < 0.001.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the retained particles and the micro-morphological characteristics for the adaxial (a–d) and abaxial (e–h) leaf surfaces of A. philoxeroides (a,b,e,f) and H. vulgaris (c,d,g,h) in terrestrial habitats (a,c,e,g) and aquatic habitats (b,d,f,h) at ×2000 magnification, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
High-resolution images obtained by SEM-EDS showing the main types of retained particles on the leaf surfaces. These include a spherical metal (Fe) particle (a), mineral particles (b–d), as well as secondary particles (e–h) aggregating on the leaf surfaces or existing inside and outside of the stomata in the terrestrial habitats (a–d) and aquatic habitats (e–h), respectively, at high magnifications of ×6000 and ×10,000.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mass fractions of water-soluble inorganic ions, including Ca2+ (a), K+ (b), NH4+ (c), Na+ (d), SO42− (e), NO3− (f), Cl− (g), and F− (h), and the total ions (i), in the particles retained on the leaf surfaces of A. philoxeroides and H. vulgaris in the terrestrial habitats (green bar) and aquatic habitats (blue bar), respectively. The data are presented as the Mean ± SE. *—p < 0.05; **—p < 0.01.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Principal component analysis (PCA) of the mass concentrations of particles with different sizes (i.e., fine particles, coarse particles, large particles, and the TSP) and the mass fractions of water-soluble ions (i.e., Ca2+, K+, NH4+, Na+, SO42−, NO3−, Cl−, and F−) retained on the leaf surfaces of the plants in the terrestrial habitats (a) and aquatic habitats (b), respectively. PC indicates a principal component.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Leaf functional traits, including the leaf area (a), specific leaf area (b), leaf biomass (c), leaf temperature (d), wax content (e), chlorophyll content (f), stomatal conductance (g), transpiration rate (h), and photosynthetic rate (i) of A. philoxeroides and H. vulgaris in the terrestrial habitats (green bar) and aquatic habitats (blue bar), respectively. The data are presented as the Mean ± SE. *—p < 0.05; **—p < 0.01; ***—p < 0.001.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Stomatal density (a) and stomatal area (b) of A. philoxeroides and H. vulgaris in the terrestrial habitats (green bar) and aquatic habitats (blue bar), respectively. The data are presented as the Mean ± SE. **—p < 0.01; ***—p < 0.001.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Correlation analysis of the mass concentrations of particles with different sizes (i.e., fine particles, coarse particles, large particles, and the TSP) and leaf functional traits (e.g., leaf area (LA), specific leaf area (SLA), leaf biomass (LB), stomatal density (SD), stomatal area (SA), wax content (WC), chlorophyll content (Chl), stomatal conductance (Gs), transpiration rate (Tr), and photosynthetic rate (Pn)) of A. philoxeroides and H. vulgaris in the terrestrial habitats (a) and aquatic habitats (b), respectively. *—p < 0.05; **—p < 0.01; ***—p < 0.001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Li W., Xu L., Liu X., Zhang J., Lin Y., Yao X., Gao H., Zhang D., Chen J., Wang W., et al. Air pollution-aerosol interactions produce more bioavailable iron for ocean ecosystems. Sci. Adv. 2017;3:e1601749. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1601749. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. West J.J., Cohen A., Dentener F., Brunekreef B., Zhu T., Armstrong B., Bell M.L., Brauer M., Carmichael G., Costa D.L., et al. What we breathe impacts our health: Improving understanding of the link between air pollution and Health. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016;50:4895–4904. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.5b03827. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Li W.J., Shao L.Y. Transmission electron microscopy study of aerosol particles from the brown hazes in Northern China. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 2009;114:D09302. doi: 10.1029/2008JD011285. - DOI
    1. Sun X., Li H., Guo X., Sun Y., Li S. Capacity of six shrub species to retain atmospheric particulates with different diameters. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. Int. 2018;25:2643–2650. doi: 10.1007/s11356-017-0549-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zhang X., Lyu J., Zeng Y., Sun N., Liu C., Yin S. Individual effects of trichomes and leaf morphology on PM2.5 dry deposition velocity: A variable-control approach using species from the same family or genus. Environ. Pollut. 2021;272:116385. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.116385. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources