Effect of air pollution on some physiological indexes of Ulmus, Acer and Platanus plants in Shiraz city

The effect of air pollution on some physiological responses on three plants Ulmus, Acer and Platanus were studied. The leaf samples of clean and pollutant areas from cars were harvested at the same time from nearly the same size of examined plants with three replications for each plant and eight leaves for each replicate from third leaf of different wing and then transferred to the laboratory. The physiological and biochemical responses like chlorophyll, proline, and antioxidant and lipid peroxidation using spectrophotometry were measured. The results showed that the amount of proline was increased significantly with 5 percent in pollutant areas. Antioxidant potential of the plants has no significant differences in pollutant and clean area. Air pollution significantly reduced the amount of chlorophyll, carotenoid and anthocyanin and increased lipidproxidation. Differences of physiological indexes in Ulmus were more resistance than Acer and Platanus that may be related to morphologic and genetic characteristics. Daily increasing of cars and releasing of different pollutants to air caused Shiraz city air pollution. It has negative effect on plants.