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Persistent organic pollutants in air and vegetation from the canadian rocky mountains
Author(s) -
Davidson Deborah A.,
Wilkinson Andrew C.,
Kimpe Lynda E.,
Blais Jules M.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
environmental toxicology and chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1552-8618
pISSN - 0730-7268
DOI - 10.1897/02-581
Subject(s) - vegetation (pathology) , environmental science , pollutant , deposition (geology) , cycling , environmental chemistry , air pollution , hydrology (agriculture) , atmospheric sciences , ecology , chemistry , geology , geography , forestry , structural basin , medicine , geotechnical engineering , pathology , biology , paleontology
The exchange of chlorinated organic pollutants between air and vegetation in cold, mountain environments was investigated through the extraction of coniferous vegetation and high‐volume air samples collected from the Canadian Rocky Mountains during the summers of 1999 and 2000. Concentrations of several compounds in vegetation increased as temperatures decreased, whereas atmospheric concentrations were not related to temperature. Daily cycling of these compounds between air and vegetation as a result of diurnal temperature changes was not observed. Compared with concentrations in vegetation from the Canadian Rocky Mountains, plant samples from the western valley in British Columbia (Canada) showed higher pollutant levels. Chemical partitioning between vegetation and air was not correlated with temperature, indicating that air contamination is governed by long‐range transport and not by local revolatilization events. Based on these observations, we show that both deposition at higher altitudes and long‐range atmospheric transport influence chemical accumulation in vegetation from the Canadian Rocky Mountains.