Monitoring Epiphytic Lichen Biodiversity to Detect Environmental Quality and Air Pollution: the Case Study of Roccamonfina Park (Campania Region - Italy)

Biomonitoring of air pollution, i.e. monitoring environmental pollution through the use of living organisms (Nimis & Skert, 1999), may be based either on the tendency of some organism to accumulate pollutants in their tissues (bioaccumulation) or on the changes that occur in the composition of animal and plant communities after exposure to pollutants (bioindication). Compared to instrumental monitoring, the use of biomonitors allows to measure as a whole the global effect that abiotic and biotic factors exert on biota, what is not possible by just analyzing the concentrations of single selected pollutants in the environment. Biomonitoring provides useful information about the global conditions affecting the environment over a given area. Of course it should not be considered as a substitute of instrumental monitoring, but rather, a necessary complement of it. It may also be suited to screen areas subjected to any risk of contamination, so helping to plan landscape policies and to set land nets of air quality (ANPA, 2001). Biomonitoring of air pollutants can be passive or active. Passive methods observe organisms growing naturally within the area of interest. Active methods detect the presence of air pollutants by placing test organisms of known response and genotype into the study area (Szczepaniak & Biziuk, 2003). Biomonitoring may be obtained by using organisms either as bioindicators or as bioaccumulators. Bioindicators are defined as organisms that allow to identify humangenerated environmental pollutants and to determine their level on a scale of qualitative determination (Conti & Cecchetti, 2001). A good bioindicator should present: high sensitivity to environmental pollutants; low mobility in space; long living cycle; wide distribution over the studied area; high genetic evenness. Bioaccumulators are defined as organisms that reflect the chemical content of atmosphere and can so be used for the quantitative determination of contaminants (Conti & Cecchetti, 2001). A good bioaccumulator should present: high tolerance to environmental pollutants;

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