PDFRadoukova T., Lacheva M., Ivanova M. & Dospatliev L. 2018. Determination of the Total Nitrogen (N) Content and Anatomical Study on the Leaves Epidermal Cells of Plant Species in Urban and Mountainous Environments (Part 3). Ecologia Balkanica, 10(2): 15-26.
Abstract. The different habitat conditions affect physiology, morphology and anatomy of the plants and provide the necessary information for comparing their ecological plasticity. The aim of the
present study was to analyse the degree of changes in the stomatal apparatus and the total phosphorus content in the leaves of species from different habitats, in order to determine the possibility of using them in biological control. The method of comparative anatomy was applied for the analysis of the stomata of four plant species: Juglans regia L., Amorpha fruticosa L., Laburnum anagyroides Medic., Syringa vulgaris L. The experimental variants included two locations – the urban area (Plovdiv City) and the mountainous area (Beklemeto Area, Stara Planina Mts.). UV/VIS DR 6705 spectrophotometer (JENWAY) was used for determining the phosphorus content in the samples, the wave length for P being 410 nm (BDS ISO 11263:2002). The highest ecological plasticity according to the stomatal characteristics was reported for A. fruticosa The mean values for number, width and length of stomata in that species in urban area were 245.6; 17.3 μm; 18.9 μm and in moutainous – 121.2; 19.1 μm; 24.3 μm, respectively. The maximal values of total phosphorus were reported for that same species (1868.32 mg/kg in urban and 2361.2 mg/kg in mountainous area), as well a deviation from the tendency of a decrease of the phosphorus content in mountainous environment. In J. regia, in contrast to the other three species, an increase of the number of stomata was observed in the mountainous area. That tendency, in combination with the comparatively small number and the highest size of stomata in both studied regions, determines the species as the
least xeromorphic. The correlation dependence between the total phosphorus content and the stomatal characteristics showed that the increase of the phosphorus content in leaves corresponds
to the xeromorphic characteristics.
