Investigation of heavy metals transportation from soil to the pine tree

Abstract

The Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is the most common tree in Lithuanian forests. Research on the impact of pollutants on pines allows us to evaluate pollutants in a major part of Lithuanian forests. Heavy metals (HMs) are among the major pollutants entering forest ecosystems in different ways: in their wet and dry form they come from local or distant sources of emission by being transported from seas alongside with nutrients and sea salt, washed up from the dead plants accumulated in soil, and together with mineral particles brought by wind or water. During the period of investigation, a decrease in the Cr concentration in pine rings is seen. High Zn concentrations (in 1987-1989 Zn concentration was 27.6 mg·kg-1) in the pine may be caused by emissions from heavy traffic. The results have shown that Mn has the highest concentration as compared with that of other HMs in the soil around the pine (at the depth of 30-40 cm, Mn concentration is 780 mg·kg-1). In comparison with other HMs, Cu and Zn have the largest factor of transport from the soil to the wood (0.39 and 0.49 respectively).