For the assessment of air quality at locations along selected road sections with different traffic density, epiphytic lichens were used as passive reactive bioindicators. With the mapping at different distances from the roadside at each location, the trafficrelated pollution impact area was assessed. Two different mapping methods were used, specifically the simple assessment of air quality, based on the assessment of frequency and coverage of different lichen growth forms (the SI method), and more demanding one, based on mapping of lichen species (the VDI method). We conclude that at locations with moderate traffic density (average daily traffic ( 20,000) the traffic-related emissions have an influence on air quality as well, except that the impact is limited to a narrow zone along the roads (( 100 m). The epiphytic lichen species composition, the number of different lichen species, as well as calculated indexes of air purity according to two different methods indicate influence of traffic-pollution in the first mapping zone (adjacent to roads), with the impact level decreasing with the distance from the roads.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3747494
For the assessment of traffic-originated pollutants input into the environmentand their impact on biocenosis, the passive bioindication was used at eight selected road sections, where mapping of epiphytic lichen flora was implemented according to a German (VDI) method. The mapping of epiphytic lichens implies that lichens can be used in bioindication studies along roads; indeed, at locations with higher traffic density (average daily traffic ) 20,000) fewer lichen species were identified in comparison with locations with lower traffic density. At road sections with very high traffic density only epiphytic lichen species most resistant to pollution were recorded, while less resistant but still highly tolerant to nitrogen pollution lichen species were recorded at road sections with moderate traffic density (average daily traffic around 10,000). At those road sections, the lichen species more sensitive to air pollution also begin to occur, which were not recorded at road sections with very high traffic density, not even 100 m away from the roadside.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3347366