Effect of heavy metal pollution on the wood structure and tracheidcharacteristics in Scots pine trees from flotation tailings

<ns3:p>Effect of heavy metal pollution on the wood structure and tracheid characteristics in Scots pine treesfrom flotation tailings. Numerous studies have demonstrated the negative impact of heavy metals on plants, suchas inhibited growth and other physiological disturbances. However, the detailed structure of wood cells in treesexposed to heavy metal pollution remains underexplored. To address this gap, several Scots pine (Pinussylvestris L.) trees growing on flotation tailings was selected to compare the wood structure of trees affectedby severe heavy metal pollution with those from a relatively unpolluted area. Tree ring structure, wood density,and the cell wall and lumen characteristics of earlywood and latewood tracheids were analysed. It has been foundthat tracheid diameters and cell wall thicknesses in wood from the polluted area differed significantly from thosein the control samples. The wood of trees growing on flotation tailings exhibited slightly lower wood density thanthat of reference trees. This might be connected with the observed thinner cell walls in latewood tracheids of pinesaffected by heavy metals, compared to the reference material. Overall, considerably greater variation in mostmeasured parameters were observed for wood samples from flotation tailings than for the control samples.</ns3:p>