PM10 Filter Monitoring and Moss-Bag Biomonitoring as Complementary Approaches for Assessing Atmospheric Deposition of
Paweł Świsłowski1, Małgorzata Rajfur1, Tymoteusz Turlej2
1Institute of Biology, University of Opole, 45-032 Opole, Poland.
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PM10 filters provide short-term quantitative information on particle-bound potentially toxic elements (PTEs), whereas mosses integrate deposition and accumulation over longer periods but do not provide air-volume-normalised concentrations. Their combined use may therefore provide a more complete assessment of atmospheric PTE deposition. The study aimed to assess whether active moss biomonitoring and filter-based PM10 monitoring provide complementary information on atmospheric deposition of PTEs under comparable exposure conditions. During the six-month campaign in Opole, PM10 was collected during repeated 24 h sampling events, while three moss species: Pleurozium schreberi, Sphagnum fallax, and Dicranum polysetum were exposed cumulatively. PTE concentrations were determined by ICP-MS; particle-size descriptors, including Q10, Q50, and Q90, were analysed for a subset of filters, whereas net concentration change and RAF were calculated relative to identically processed unexposed moss controls. Spearman correlation, PCA, and Bray-Curtis dissimilarity were used for data analysis. The material retained on the PM10 filters was dominated by Fe, Zn, and Pb, whilst elevated peak values for Cd, Zn, and Pb indicated episodic enrichment in some samples. In mosses, Pb and Co showed the most consistent relative enrichment, while mean RAF exceeded 1.0 for five elements in P. schreberi and two elements each in D. polysetum and S. fallax. PCA separated PM10 from moss profiles, with the first two components explaining 80.4% of the variance, while PM10-moss Bray-Curtis distances ranged from 0.75 to 0.81. The results indicate that PM10 filters and mosses record different but complementary aspects of the atmospheric PTE signal. The simultaneous use of both methods allows the atmospheric PTE signal to be interpreted at two levels: the short-term composition of PM10 material retained on the filters, and the long-term retention and accumulation of elements within the moss matrix.
