Strategies of adaptation to heavy metal pollution in Deschampsia caespitosa and Lychnis flos-cuculi: Analysis based on dose-response relationship

The response to copper pollution was studied in the vegetative progeny of tufted hair grass (Deschampsia caespitosa (L.) Beauv.) and ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi L.) plants growing together in chronically polluted areas around the Middle Ural Copper Smelter or in background areas. The root elongation test was used, with copper sulfate (0.006–0.51 mg Cu/L) being added directly to the nutrient medium. Using multimodel inference, dose-response curves were plotted for each of 85 maternal plants, and their parameters (effective Cu concentrations and curve slope in the linear segment) were evaluated. The pattern of transformation in dose dependence of root increment upon transition from background to impact populations proved to be basically different in the two species. The curves for L. flos-cuculi showed a parallel shift, with their shape remaining generally unchanged. In D. caespitosa, this transition was accompanied by a decrease in sensitivity to Cu, but tolerance to this metal was found to increase only at the highest concentration range. These results provide evidence for different strategies of adaptation to heavy metal pollution, which are discussed by comparing the physiological and ecological properties of the two species.     

Intraspecific Variability of Metal Tolerance in Taraxacum officinale Wigg. s.l. Seed Progeny: Analysis Based on Dose–Response Relationship

Russian Journal of Ecology - Based on the analysis of dose–response relationships under exposure to a wide range of copper sulfate concentrations, the metal tolerance of seed progeny was...     

Analysis of Ecological Networks in Multicomponent Communities of Microorganisms: Possibilities,Limitations, and Potential Errors

Russian Journal of Ecology - Owing to the high resolving power and efficiency of DNA sequencing, researchers have discovered the extremely high diversity of bacterial, fungal, protist, and...