Atmospheric Heavy Metal and Nitrogen Deposition Using Mosses as Biomonitors

Dear Colleagues,

Air pollution has a negative impact on various compartments of ecosystems, posing a threat to the natural environment and human health and causing significant economic damage. Due to their specific features, mosses are recognized as one of the main bioindicators and biomonitors of air contamination, with toxic elements including those originating from anthropogenic and natural sources. The determination of elemental concentrations in mosses is easier and cheaper than conventional precipitation analysis, and a much higher sampling density can be achieved by employing moss biomonitoring.

In recent decades, naturally growing mosses have been used successfully in biomonitoring campaigns for checking the atmospheric fallout of heavy metals and nitrogen (N) across Europe, and the approach has been extended in many regions of the world for characterizing multielemental deposition sources. Quantification of heavy metals and N in selected moss species provides a time-integrated measure of the spatial patterns and temporal trends of heavy metal deposition from the atmosphere to terrestrial ecosystems and a good indication of ecosystems at risk from high N deposition.

Manuscripts on all aspects of passive and active moss biomonitoring of air quality, heavy metals, and nitrogen pollution sources are welcome for this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Antoaneta Ene
Guest Editor

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