Abstract
The olive tree (Olea europaea) is an icon of southern Europe and awidespread evergreen in mainland Portugal. First results of a continuing studyon the ability of olive-tree bark to act as an air-pollution biomonitor arepresented and discussed here. Other than lower signals and an anticipatedsystemic control over some elements, there seems to be no a priori reasonfor ruling out the possibility of using bark in atmospheric trace-elementsurveys. In fact, nonparametric statistics show that, despite their relativemagnitude, the variation patterns of bark and lichen concentrations significantlyfollow one another all across the study area.
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Pacheco, A.M.G., Freitas, M.C., Barros, L.I.C. et al. Investigating tree bark as an air-pollution biomonitor by means of neutron activation analysis. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 249, 327–331 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013293814789
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013293814789