Advances in air quality biomonitoring with the terrestrial moss Pseudoscleropodium purum

Abstract

Terrestrial mosses are widely used to estimate the levels of contaminants in the atmosphere. The so-called “moss biomonitoring technique” was developed in the Nordic countries at the end of the 1960s as a means of studying the atmospheric deposition of heavy metals. Bryophytes are often considered as ideal organisms for use as biomonitors because of particular characteristics that confer them with a high cation exchange capacity, which enables them to capture and accumulate contaminants from atmospheric deposition. In addition, they can also retain particles (which become strongly bound to their tissues), they are widely distributed in various types of habitats, and they can be easily and inexpensively maintained in the laboratory. Use of the technique has spread to other European countries and rest of the world, and mosses have been used to estimate the levels of different types of contaminants. Despite all the research done during all of these years, further research on some aspects (methodological and ecophysiological) of the technique is still required to optimize the use of Pseudoscleropodium purum as a biomonitor.