EIACP Centre on Plants and Pollution

What is the meaning of Native plant?

A plant that is historically found in its current area. These plants are generally good for an area, as they give competition to non-native plants.

What is the meaning of Non-native plant?

Any plant that is not historically found in its current area. These plants are usually introduced into new areas by human activity or livestock.

What is the meaning of Emersed Plant?

A plant that is rooted in shallow water. Most of the vegetative growth is above water.

Define Deforestation

The reduction of trees in a wood or forest due to natural forces or human activity such as burning or logging.

Define Fossil fuels

Fuels – such as coal, gas, peat and oil – that are formed in the ground over a long time from dead plants and animals and are used up once they are burned for energy.

What is Sustainable development ?

Development using land or energy sources in a way that meets the needs of people today without reducing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

What is Waste management?

The management of waste collection, handling, processing, storage and transport from where it is produced to where it is finally disposed.

What is the meaning of Pesticides?

A general term for any chemicals that are used to kill weeds, fungi, insects or other pests.

What is the Nitrogen Cycle?

Nitrogen Cycle is a biogeochemical process which transforms the inert nitrogen present in the atmosphere to a more usable form for living organisms.

What is Photosynthesis?

Photosynthesis, the process by which green plants and certain other organisms transform light energy into chemical energy. During photosynthesis in green plants, light energy is captured and used to convert water, carbon dioxide, and minerals into oxygen and energy-rich organic compounds.

What is Acid Rain?

Acid rain, or acid deposition, is a broad term that includes any form of precipitation with acidic components, such as sulfuric or nitric acid that fall to the ground from the atmosphere in wet or dry forms. This can include rain, snow, fog, hail or even dust that is acidic.

Define Chlorophyll

Chlorophyll is a pigment that gives plants their green color, and it helps plants create their own food through photosynthesis.

What is Global Warming?

Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century primarily due to the greenhouse gases released by people burning fossil fuels.

What is ecology ?

Ecology is the study of organisms and their relationship with their surroundings. Specifically, ecologists study the interaction between organisms and their environment.

What is an ecosystem ? 

An ecosystem includes all the abiotic (non-living) factors in addition to the community of biotic (living) things that exists in a certain area.

What is a food chain/food web ?

A food chain is a simple model showing the flow of nutritional energy through an ecosystem. This means that a food chain shows the path of food from one organism to another, transferring energy to the organism digesting the food.

What is climate change ?

Climate change is a shift in ‘climate’ relative to a given reference time period.

It may be caused by

1. Natural factors like solar variabilities, volcanic dust levels, Internal variability etc.
2. Human factor like emission of green house gases, aerosols, ozone depletion, land use changes etc.

What is the greenhouse effect, and how does it affect the climate ?

The greenhouse effect is a natural process that helps make the Earth warm enough for us to live. It works like this: The Earth gets energy from the sun, heats up, and then gives off energy in a different form, called infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap some of this energy before it escapes to outer space, warming the atmosphere. But people's activities are adding extra greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, so the greenhouse effect is becoming stronger and the Earth is getting warmer.

Can climate change harm plants ? 

Yes. Any change in the climate of an area can affect the plants that live there. Some plants might adapt, but others could have trouble surviving. Climate change also alters plants' life cycles. For example, some flowers are blooming earlier in the spring.

What is IPCC ?

IPCC is Intergovermental Panel of Climate Change. The role of the IPCC is t o assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

What is an invasive species ?

Invasive species are species that are non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm, or harm to human health. Invasive species can be plants, animals, or pathogens.

What are the effects of increased UV-B radiation on crops and forests ?

Most plants have UV shielding, but not always sufficient for complete protection. Only a small proportion of the UV-B radiation striking a leaf penetrates into the inner tissues. When exposed to enhanced UV-B radiation, many species of plants can increase the UV-absorbing pigments in their outer leaf tissues. Other adaptations may include increased thickness of leaves that reduces the proportion of inner tissues exposed to UV-B radiation and changes in the protecting waxy layer of the leaves. Several repair mechanisms exist in plants, including repair systems for DNA damage or oxidant injury. The net damage a plant experiences is the result of the balance between damage and protection and repair processes.

What is Bioremediation ?

Bioremediation is an emerging technology that employs the use of plants and microbes for the cleanup of contaminated environment.

What is phytoremediation ?

Phytoremediation uses plants to cleanup contaminated soil and groundwater, taking advantage of the plants natural abilities to take up, accumulate, and or degrade constituents of their soil and water environments.

Which plants are known as hyperaccumulator plants ?

A hyperaccumulator is a plant capable of growing in soils with very high concentrations of metals, absorbing these metals through their roots, and concentrating extremely high levels of metals in their tissues.

What are bio-monitors ?

Bioindicators that provide quantitative information on levels of pollution and allow the identification of change in the course of time are defined as “biomonitors”. 

Some of the essential characteristics of biomonitors are: 

1. The organism must be capable of accumulating metals in measurable amounts.
2. The organism or the relevant part of it, must be readily available, in terms of quality and distribution, to make unbiased sampling possible.
3. The study must be repeatable.
4. The cost of collection and analysis should be acceptable.

Where can I get more information about the science and effects of ozone depletion ?

There are many websites that contain information on ozone, UV, environmental effects and related topics. However, some are outdated and some may contain incorrect information. The sites mentioned below belong to dependable organisations and contain dependable information. Most of these sites contain links to other sources of information.

UNEP: www.unep.org

WMO : http://www.wmo.ch

WHO : http://www.who.int

IPCC: http://www.ipcc.ch

NOAA: http://www.al.noaa.gov

EPA : http://www.epa.gov

NASA: http://jwocky.gsfc.nasa.gov

Will Plant Tissue Culture plants become an invasive species ?

As with any plant propagation technique, it is important to understand the environment that you would place the plant to avoid introducing a potentillay invasive species.

What is Plant Tissue Culture ?

It is the process of producing plants from the tissue of a desired plant in an artifical nutrient medium under controlled environment. The plants produced are genetically identical to the original plant.

What is Bryophyte ?

Bryophyte is a traditional name used to refer to all embryophytes (land plants) that do not have true vascular tissue and are therefore called "non-vascular plants". Some bryophytes do have specialized tissues for the transport of water; however, since these do not contain lignin, they are not considered to be true vascular tissue.

What is Pteridophyte ?

Pteridophytes or Pteridophyta, in the broad interpretation of the term (or sensu lato), are vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce and disperse via spores. Because they produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are referred to as cryptogams. The group includes ferns, horsetails, clubmosses, spikemosses and quillworts. These do not form a monophyletic group, because ferns and horsetails are more closely related to seed plants than to lycophytes (clubmosses, spikemosses and quillworts). Therefore, pteridophytes are no longer considered to form a valid taxon, but the term is still used as an informal way to refer to ferns (monilophytes) and lycophytes, and some recent authors have used the term to refer strictly to the monilophytes.

What is Angiosperm ?

The flowering plants (angiosperms), also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by characteristics including flowers, endosperm within the seeds, and the production of fruits that contain the seeds. Etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant.

What is Vascular Plant ?

Vascular plants are plants in the Kingdom Plantae that have specialized tissues for conducting water. Vascular plants include the ferns, clubmosses, horsetails, flowering plants (angiosperms), and conifers, and other gymnosperms. Scientific names are Tracheophyta and Tracheobionta, but neither is very widely used. Nonvascular plants include lineages both in Plantae (mosses, hornworts, and liverworts) and members of other kingdoms (the various algae).

Define Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the diversity of plant and animal life found in a particular area. It also deals with the inter-relationship and interaction with their environment.

What are biofertilizers?

The fertilizers are used to improve the fertility of the land using biological wastes. These fertilizers are not harmful to crops or other plants like the chemical fertilizers.

Define Succession

A process where an ecological community transforms itself until a stable community is formed.

What is Vermicompost?

Vermicompost (or Worm Compost) the process of using earthworms to breakdown kitchen and garden waste, to create a faster than normal composting.

What is Desertification?

Desertification is a type of land degradation in which relatively dry area of land becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife. It is caused by a variety of factors, such as through climate change and through the overexploitation of soil through human activity.