Abstract
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.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Biere, A., Genotypic and plastic variation in plant size: Effects on fecundity and allocation patterns in Lychnis floscuculi along a gradient of natural soil fertility, J. Ecol., 1995, vol. 83, no. 4, pp. 629–642.
Bradshaw, A.D., Evolutionary significance of phenotypic plasticity in plants, Adv. Genet., 1965, vol. 13, pp. 115–155.
Buckland, S.T., Burnham, K.P., and Augustin, N.H., Model selection: An integral part of inference, Biometrics, 1997, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 603–618.
Burnham, K.P. and Anderson, D.R., Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical Information-Theoretic Approach, New York: Springer, 2002.
Canty, A. and Ripley, B., boot: Bootstrap R (S-Plus) functions. R package version 1.3–4. 2012. http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/boot/index.html
Chaloupecká E. and Lepš, J. Equivalence of competitor effects and tradeoff between vegetative multiplication and generative reproduction: Case study with Lychnis floscuculi and Myosotis nemorosa, Flora, 2004, vol. 199, no. 2, pp. 157–167.
Cox, R.M. and Hutchinson, T.C., Multiple metal tolerances in the grass Deschampsia caespitosa (L.) Beauv. from the Sudbury smelting area, New Phytol., 1980, vol. 84, no. 4, pp. 631–647.
Davy, A.J., Biological flora of the British Isles: Deschampsia caespitosa (L.) Beauv., J. Ecol., 1980, vol. 62, no. 149, pp. 367–378.
De Vos, C.H.R., Schat, H., De Waal, M.A.M., Vooijs, R., and Ernst, W.H.O., Increased resistance to copper-induced damage of the root cell plasmalemma in copper-tolerant Silene cucubalus, Physiol. Plant., 1991, vol. 82, no. 4, pp. 523–528.
Ducousso, A., Petit, D., Valero, M., and Vernet, P., Genetic variation between and within populations of a perennial grass, Arrhenatherum elatius, Heredity, 1990, vol. 65, pp. 179–188.
Dulya, O.V. and Mikryukov, V.S., Effect of methodological factors on the results of ecological experiments: Meta-analysis, in Ekologiya: Skvoz’ vremya i rasstoyanie (Ecology: Through Time and Distance), Yekaterinburg, 2011, pp. 60–68.
Ernst, W.H.O., Evolution of metal tolerance in higher plants, For. Snow Landsc. Res., 2006, vol. 80, no. 3, pp. 251–274.
Hall, J.L., Cellular mechanisms for heavy metal detoxification and tolerance, J. Exp. Bot., 2002, vol. 53, no. 366, pp. 1–11.
Kopittke, P.M., Blamey, F.P., Asher, C.J., and Menzies, N.W., Trace metal phytotoxicity in solution culture: A review, J. Exp. Bot., 2010, vol. 61, no. 4, pp. 945–954.
Macnair, M.R., Smith, S.E., and Cumbes, Q.J., Heritability and distribution of variation in degree of copper tolerance in Mimulus guttatus at Copperopolis, California, Heredity, 1993, vol. 71, no. 5, pp. 445–455.
Meerts, P. and Van Isacker, N., Heavy metal tolerance and accumulation in metallicolous and non-metallicolous populations of Thlaspi caerulescens from continental Europe, Plant Ecol., 1997, vol. 133, no. 1, pp. 221–231.
Mengoni, A., Barabesi, C., Gonnelli, C., et al., Genetic diversity of heavy metal-tolerant populations in Silene paradoxa L. (Caryophyllaceae): A chloroplast microsatellite analysis, Mol. Ecol., 2001, vol. 10, no. 8, pp. 1909–1916.
Mengoni, A., Gonnelli, C., Hakvoort, H.W.J., et al., Evolution of copper tolerance and increased expression of a 2btype metallothionein gene in Silene paradoxa L. populations, Plant Soil, 2003, vol. 257, no. 2, pp. 451–457.
Nesterkov, A.V. and Vorobeichik, E.L., Changes in the structure of chortobiont invertebrate community exposed to emissions from a copper smelter, Russ. J. Ecol., 2009, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 286–296.
Paschke, M.W. and Redente, E.F., Copper toxicity thresholds for important restoration grass species of the western United States, Env. Toxicol. Chem., 2002, vol. 21, no. 12, pp. 2692–2697.
Ritz, C., Toward a unified approach to dose-response modeling in ecotoxicology, Env. Toxicol. Chem., 2010, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 220–229.
Ritz, C. and Streibig, J.C., Bioassay analysis using R, J. Stat. Softw., 2005, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 1–22.
Rousseeuw, P.J. and Croux, C., Alternatives to the median absolute deviation, J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 1993, vol. 88, no. 424, pp. 1273–1283.
Seliskar, D.M., Effect of reciprocal transplanting between extremes of plant zones on morphometric plasticity of five plant species in an Oregon salt marsh, Can. J. Bot., 1985, vol. 63, no. 12, pp. 2254–2262.
Slikker, W., Jr., Andersen, M.E., Bogdanffy, M.S., et al., Dose-dependent transitions in mechanisms of toxicity, Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol., 2004, vol. 201, no. 3, pp. 203–225.
The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG III, Bot. J. Linn. Soc., 2009, vol. 161, no. 2, pp. 105–121.
The R Development Core Team, R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing, R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2012. http://www.R-project.org/
Tieszen, L.L. and Helgager, J.A., Genetic and physiological adaptation in the Hill reaction of Deschampsia caespitosa, Nature, 1968, vol. 219, pp. 1066–1967.
Trubina, M.R. and Dulya, O.V., Specific features of changes in the abundance of local populations and the distribution pattern of individual plants in meadow species growing in the vicinity of a copper smelter, in Biologicheskaya rekul’tivatsiya i monitoring narushennykh zemel’ (Biological Remediation of Disturbed Lands), Yekaterinburg, 2007, pp. 639–649.
Trubina, M.R. and Vorobeichik, E.L., Severe industrial pollution increases the β-diversity of plant communities, Doklady Biol. Sci., 2012, vol. 442, pp. 17–19.
Verkleij, J.A., Van Hoof, N., Chardonnens, A.N., et al., Mechanisms of heavy metal resistance in Silene vulgaris, in Plant Nutrition: Food Security and Sustainability of Agro-Ecosystems, Horst, W.J., Schenk, M.K., et al., Eds., Amsterdam: Kluwer, 2001, pp. 446–447.
Vorobeichik, E.L. and Pozolotina, V.N., Microscale spatial variation in forest litter phytotoxicity, Russ. J. Ecol., 2003, vol. 34, no. 6, pp. 381–388.
Vorobeichik, E.L., Sadykov, O.F., and Farafontov, M.G., Ekologicheskoe normirovanie tekhnogennykh zagryaznenii nazemnykh ekosistem (Ecological Rating of Technogenic Pollution in Terrestrial Ecosystems), Yekaterinburg: Nauka, 1994.
Weltje, L., Integrating evolutionary genetics and ecotoxicology: On the correspondence between reaction norms and concentration-response curves, Ecotoxicology, 2003, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 523–528.
Wilkins, D.A., A technique for the measurement of lead tolerance in plants, Nature, 1957, vol. 180, no. 4575, pp. 37–38.
Wilkins, D.A., The measurement of tolerance to edaphic factors by means of root growth, New Phytol, 1978, vol. 80, no. 3, pp. 623–633.
Zhukova, L.A., Tufted hair grass, in Biologicheskaya flora Moskovskoi oblasti (Biological Flora of the Moscow Region), Moscow, 1976, vol. 3, pp. 62–75.
Zhuravskaya, A.N., Pozolotina, V.N., and Kershengol’ts, B.M., The radiosensitivity of the seeds of the plants of Central Yakutia, Russ. J. Ecol., 1997, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 15–19.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © O.V. Dulya, V.S. Mikryukov, E.L. Vorobeichik, 2013, published in Ekologiya, 2013, No. 4, pp. 243–253.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dulya, O.V., Mikryukov, V.S. & Vorobeichik, E.L. Strategies of adaptation to heavy metal pollution in Deschampsia caespitosa and Lychnis flos-cuculi: Analysis based on dose-response relationship. Russ J Ecol 44, 271–281 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1067413613040036
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1067413613040036