Abstract: Bryophytes, presently survived in three lineages, i.e., mosses, liverworts and hornworts, are an ancient group of early land plants. Its unique features like lack of roots system, unistratose leaves, ion-exchange capacity and mode of nutrients uptake make it a distinctive plant group. Since plants of this group, particularly mosses, possess remarkable ability to absorb heavy metals from the atmosphere, they play a significant role as a sensitive indicator of environmental pollution as evidenced by changes in death rate, apparent injury, chlorophyll reduction and cell size reduction in leaf. The present investigation was carried out to study effect of various phytotoxic concentrations of metals - Zinc and Cadmium (for varying length of time) on the photosynthetic activity of mosses Brachythecium rutabulum and Mnium cuspidatum. It has been observed that exogenously supplied Zinc and Cadmium significantly stressed the oxidative enzymes as well as the photosynthetic pigments of Brachythecium rutabulum and Mnium cuspidatum. The chlorophyll content was studied in two above named species of mosses collected from different localities of Shimla (Himachal Pradesh). It has been found that the total chlorophyll content is more in Brachythecium rutabulum than in Mnium cuspidatum when treated with zinc in comparison with cadmium. Chlorophyll-a and Chlorophyll-b were maximum in Brachythecium rutabulum and minimum in Mnium cuspidatum when treated with Zinc and Cadmium separately.
Keywords: Brachythecium rutabulum, Mnium cuspidatum, Zinc, Cadmium and Heavy metals.
Title: EFFECT OF ZINC AND CADMIUM ON CHLOROPHYLL CONTENT OF MOSSES BRACHYTHECIUM RUTABULUM AND MNIUM CUSPIDATUM
Author: Sahar Bano, Anju Rao, Navneet Agnihotri
International Journal of Life Sciences Research
ISSN 2348-313X (Print), ISSN 2348-3148 (online)
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