Phytoindication of air pollution near the city dump of yakutsk by the growth of pine and larch shots

This article presents the results of a study examining the response of light coniferous trees, dominant in the taiga biome of Central Yakutia, to air pollution in the vicinity of the Yakutsk municipal solid waste landfill (6 km of the Vilyuy highway). Scots pine and Cajander larch, growing near the municipal landfill, were selected as test specimens. The sensitivity of woody plants to air pollution was assessed using lateral shoot growth. The aim of the study was to evaluate the response of Scots pine and Cajander larch to air pollution caused by the municipal landfill. To this end, lateral branch growth was measured over a 15-20-year period at various distances from the landfill. The conducted studies showed that the average lateral shoot growth of Scots pine gradually increased by 8.7% with distance from the landfill, from 6.01±0.35 to 6.91±0.33 cm. For Cajander larch, growth showed a trend of increasing by almost 12%, from 5.93±0.20 to 7.11±0.20. Thus, instrumental analysis demonstrated that lateral shoot growth significantly increases with distance from the landfill for both tree species. This highly likely indicates a negative impact of the Yakutsk municipal solid waste landfill on the growth of trees in nearby forests. The obtained results also confirm the effectiveness of the chosen phytoindication method based on annual tree growth. Its advantages include its retrospective nature, simplicity, clarity, and speed of data collection, low invasiveness for trees, and the ability to easily formalize and interpret the obtained data.