THE RESEARCH OF LICHEN FLORA IN THE TEMIRTAU TOWN

Vladlena L. Tulekbaeva, Aynur T. Nurkenova, Gayane P. Pogossyan

Academician E.A. Buketov Karaganda State University

Nowadays the problem of environment pollution is one of the most important in the biology. Due to intensive and fast industry and transport spheres development, human’s environment receives more and more toxic wastes [1]. Unfortunately, according to the scientific opinion, Temirtau is one of the most polluted towns in the Kazakhstan, because it atmosphere constantly takes a lot of emissions, which belong to the ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy factories. Metallurgical plant JSC "Arcelor Mittal" plays the role of hugest ecological problem and poluetr in the city. 95 % of all pollution wastes are concerned to this works. Big percent among these wastes are taking carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, also soot and black carbon. Besides of the study of industrial factories environmental pollution, we also need for constantly observing the reaction of biological objects due to the impact of pollutants.

Lichens are good indicators of environmental pollution, because they have the ability to accumulate elements of pollution such as heavy metals, radionuclides. The unique properties of lichens may be used as test - objects for the observing of the summary pollution level of both atmospheric and soil layer. The lichens are believed as the most informative and economical object in the organization of environmental monitoring. These arguments help us to consider the real object of the present work as a bioindicator of air pollution of Temirtau town.

The aim of this work is study and definition the species composition of lichen flora of the Temirtau town.

Early biological studies were educated only to the widespread of different lichens species in the town park, because the possibility of plant identifying was much higher in this part of town, which ground had big kind variety. As we know, there are nearly 16 000 lichen species all over the world, many species it absolute majority prefers for own existing base trees and shrubberies, where lives almost exclusively epiphytic. Because of own nature specifications (lichens are very sensitive organisms to pollution, in particular to the presence of СО₂ and SO₂ in the atmosphere), usually as places of it possible habitats could be only a town parks, alleys and forest belts [2, 3].

For exactness and authentic of experiment, the town park was divided into several parts. Substrates were mainly bark and wood, marble or granite surface of the monuments, sparsely lichens were found on the ground. Observed and checked a large number of trees and shrubberies [4].

As we know, our plant park was divided into zones; also it was crossed each 100 m by lines, which had created especial area with 300 m in the length, and 100 m in the width. The biggest number of lichens was found on a bark of the maple - Acer negundo, dwarf elm - Ulmus pumila, scots pine - Pinus sylvestris, and a few numbers on a bark of the black poplar - Populus nigra, also our plant was discovered on a bark of the mountain ash and the willow platanoides. Totally we researched nearly 300 woody plants, which had on itself lichens. We took lichen examples from the barks of 41 trees.

According to our results, nearly 69% of lichen was growing on a bark of the maple - Acer negundo, 16 % - dwarf elm (Ulmus pumila); 7% - black poplar (Populus nigra); 4% - mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia), and 4% was found on a bark of the willow platanoides (Salix acutifolia wild). Finally were identified 6 species of lichens.

So, in the researching zone we discovered the following species of lichens: Xanthoria substellaris (Ach.) Vain., X. parietina (L.) Belt., Lecania dimera (Nyl.) Th.Fr., Parmeliopsis ambiqua (Wulf.) Nyl., Physcia hispida (Schreb.) Frege, Physcіa stellarіs (Ach.) Nyl., Caloplaca aurantіaca (Lightf. ) Th. Fr., C. cerina (Ehrh.) Th. Fr., S. pyraceae (Ach.) Th. Fr. The diversity of biological and ecological indicators of lichen species is identified in the Table 1.

Table 1. Bioecological characteristics of the lichen flora in the town park of Temirtau

№	Leche name (lat.)	morphological characteristics	substrate	Environmental Group	Frequency
1	Caloplaca aurantіaca (Lightf.) Th. Fr.	Scale	Dwarf elm	Epiphytic, epiksilny	Cop3
2	C. cerina (Ehrh.) Th. Fr.	Scale	Dwarf elm, pine	Epiphytic	Sol
3	С. pyraceae (Ach.) Th. Fr.	Scale	Dwarf elm, pine	Epiphytic	Sol
4	Lecania dimera (Nyl.) Th.Fr.	Scale	Black poplar	Epiphytic	Sol
5	Parmeliopsis ambiqua (Wulf.) Nyl.	Foliose	Dwarf elm, pine	Epiphytic	Un
6	Physcia hispida (Schreb.) Frege	Foliose	Acer negundo	Epiphytic	Cop3
7	Physcіa stellarіs (Ach.) Nyl.	Foliose	Pine, willow platanoides	Epiphytic	Cop1
8	Xanthoria substellaris (Ach.) Vain.	Palet-scum	Acer negundo, Dwarf elm	Epiphytic	Cop2
9	X. parietina (L.) Belt.	Palet-scum	Stone	Epilitny	Cop1
10	Cladonia pyxidata (L.) Hoffm.	Bushy	Ground	Epigeyny	Un

The lichens percent of the total flora volume in the park amounts from 2,2% to 2,5%. About 76% of it usually grows on the bark of pine (Pinus sylvestris), 19% - dwarf elm (Ulmus pumila), 4% - Acer negundo, and 2% - black poplar (Populus nigra).

The lichens kinds’ correlation, which has been discovered and observed during out experiment, is showed in the figure 1.

Figure 1. Unification of lichens by morphological characteristics

The figure shows us that the majority of plants are concerned to be scale types of lichens. Due to non-founding of lichens kinds, which are especially very sensitive to the air pollution and not tolerable to sulfur dioxide, combustion products, dust and other toxins, we may conclude that there is possibility of the existing of clean air in the town.

The distribution of the identified lichen species by the ecological structure is presented in the Figure 2.

67 % – epiphytic, 17 % – epixil, 8 % - epilit, 8 % - epigei lichens.

Figure 2. Distribution of the identified lichen species.

In the present work has been observed the systematic structure of the studied species. Representative examples of lichens belong to the four orders of magnitude (Physciales, Teloschistales, Lecanorales, Lecideales), five families (Caloplacaceae Mass., Lecanoracea Fee., Parmeliaceae A. Zan., Teloshiaceae Zah., Cladoniacea (Zenker)), six genera and ten species.

The presented diagram shows the advantage of the epiphytic ecological groups over all others.

Thus, we have identified lichens species, ecological groups, and the morphological structure of the lichen flora in the park area in the industrial Temirtau town. The results of this research let us to see the correlation between the qualitative and quantitative composition of the objects of study and their biological and ecological characteristics.

Further researches are suggesting analyzing of the species composition of the lichen flora in different parts of Temirtau town, including it close proximity to the epicenter of pollution, which is the metallurgical plant JSC "Arcelor Mittal".

Bibliography

1. Baitulin I.O., Baitulin A.I. The ecology in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Almaty, 2001.

2. Tulekbaeva V.L., Pogossyan G.P. Lichens as bioindicators of the air. KarSU Journal. Biology, medicine, geography series. 3 (2009), P. 10-16.

3. Nurkenova A.T., Abdrahmanov O.A. Bas sayabaktar negizinde Karagandy kalasynda taralgan kynalardyn keybir erekshelikteri. The actual problems in the ecology. The materials of the 3^rd International scientific-practical conference, Karaganda, 2004. P. 186-189

4. Nurkenova A.T., Abdrahmanov O.A. Karagandy kalasynda kezdesetin kynalardyn keybir bioekologialyk, erekshelikteri, KarSU Journal. Biology, medicine, geography series. 3 (2004), P. 16-19.