Impact of Atmospheric Pollution on Plant Diversity

Air pollution, a stress factor mainly of anthropogenic origin, is known to cause subtle alterations of many processes within the ecosystem. As a result, destabilisation of ecosystem occurs with the loss of several plant species. Plant assemblages have been found adversely affected due to the stress caused by air pollutants. The effects of air pollutants start at individual plant level by entering through the foliage and interacting with internal leaf tissues leading to death or injury. The harmful impact of pollutants on growth of herbs, shrubs and trees has been documented. Air pollution can influence plant species in diverse ways and thus affect the ecosystems at various levels of organisation. Increased mortality, declining vigour and changes in genetic and species diversity are often reported around pollutant sources. Long term studies are required to understand the variations in plant response to air pollutants in natural and seminatural ecosystems to predict the level of plant diversity loss due to this anthropogenic stress factor.