Determination of heavy metal accumulation in the some of landscape plants for shrub forms

Heavy metals have a separate precaution in the air pollution components as they are not easily deteriorated in nature, they tend to bioaccumulate, they are carcinogenic or poisonous, and they can be toxic even at low concentrations. Therefore, monitoring of heavy metal pollution is of great importance. Plants are frequently used as biomonitors to monitor the heavy metal pollution. However, the heavy metal accumulation capacities of plants can vary considerably depending on the plant species, as well as on the organelle basis and the amount of particulate matter in the environment. It is also very important to determine how much of the heavy metal concentrations found in plants are derived from the plant species, and how much from the particulate matter on the organelle. In this study, it was aimed to determine the change of heavy metal accumulation in some landscape plants grown in city center of Kastamonu depending on plant type, plant organism, washing status and traffic density. For this purpose; Leaf and branch samples were collected from individuals of Ligustrum vulgare, Euonymus japonica, Biota orientalis, Juniperus sabina, Berberis thunbergii, Mahonia aquifolium and Buxus sempervirens which are frequently used in urban landscape designs growing in areas with heavy, low dense and non traffic. Some of the collected samples were washed and heavy metal analyses were conducted to determine the amount of Cr, Ni, Fe, Mg, Cu, Ca, Zn, Mn, Pb and Cd concentrations. As the result of the study it was determined that different species accumulate heavy metals in different levels, and according to the Duncan test, Ligustrum vulgare is in the first homogeneous group for all elements, and Buxus sempervirens is in the last homogeneous group for all elements except Cr. It was remarkable that Cu, Ni, Pb, Cd and Ca concentrations were higher in brencehes than in the leaves for all the species. And the alteration depending on traffic density on the base of the factors studied was in different proportion depending on the metals.