Measuring up to Disaster: The Necessity for Valid Baseline Data

M.R.D. Seaward
Department of Environmental Science, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK
Introduction The use of plants and animals as indicators of environmental stability is widely recognized. Organisms play varying roles in ecosystems: they make specific demands on the physical and other biological components of their environment and respond critically to changes in them. In theory, the techniques which have been developed by the ecologist could be employed on a large scale for low technology environmental appraisals and impact studies where comparable on-site instrumentation would be expensive to install and maintain. Unfortunately, most of the techniques based on bioaccumulation require sophisticated analytical equipment, together with a fairly detailed understanding of the taxonomy of one or more groups of organisms. Bioindication Plants, animals, fungi and bacteria have been widely employed as biomonitors in air, soil and water pollution surveys over the past few decades, the techniques having employed such diverse biological materials as micro-organisms, periphyton, fungal conidia, fungal fruiting bodies, duckweed, pollen grains, tree-rings, plankton, woodlice, molluscs, fish scales, bird feathers, and mammalian (including human) bones, hair, blood and faeces (see also [1,2]). Accounts of such applications have been extensively published, but all too frequently the information is widely scattered, often in obscure or inaccessible literature sources, and lacks synthesis[3]. Ineffectual communication has been one of the reasons for the misuse of bioindicational techniques in environmental analyses; this and other disadvantages of such an approach to pollution surveys and environmental impact studies could be improved by paying more attention to: q Taxonomy, by suitable choice of species (accepting genetic plasticity) and possible use of a few (even one) easily recognized organisms or assemblages rather than reliance on species diversity. q Performance, through suitable choice of reaction for measurement, such as morphological, histological, ecological or physiological performance, and the recognition of symptoms induced by specific components, by

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Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 3 No. 4, 1994, pp. 17-26. MCB University Press, 0965-3562

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synergistic effects and direct versus indirect effects of pollution, as well as any response to other factors, including pathogenic, toxic and nutritional effects. q Time scale, whether response is to long-term or short-term effects. q Site, by recognition of pollution source(s) the background contribution to the pollution burden and other environmental factors, that may necessitate multivariate analyses. q Habitat, in the selection of uniform physical and biological environments for constancy of factors, other than pollutants being evaluated, from site to site. q Techniques , by standardization of procedures to ensure analytical consistency from sample to sample, from site to site, in laboratory backup and in transplantation and in vitro experiments. q Expression of results, through consistency of units, standardization for expression of symptoms, reactions, and analytical data; the use of relative versus absolute concentration measurements, and the provision of background/baseline/control measurements. q Communication, through readily available published sources written in non-technical language, advisory panels, and educational programmes. Physical and/or chemical surveys do not necessarily measure the pollutants which are harmful to biological materials, and measuring devices on-site and analytical equipment in laboratory back-up are usually concerned with a limited number of pollutants (usually as part of a regional or national survey) for which quick, reliable and cheap determination can be made. Furthermore, on-site devices are not evenly spread over a country, often being concentrated on urban and/or industrial complexes[4]. An obvious advantage of using bioindicators is that these show the results of the action of particular pollutants on living material a relevant, if at times rather emotive, approach to determining human technological impact on the biosphere. It will never be possible to replace direct physical and chemical measurements of pollutant concentrations entirely by the use of bioindicators; nevertheless, both approaches are necessary for making a detailed or largescale survey of the distribution of pollutants, where the extensive use of technical equipment on-site is costly or impractical. Case Studies A plethora of papers dealing with the deleterious effects of pollution on terrestrial and aquatic plants and animals has appeared in the scientific press, a very large proportion of which are concerned with field surveys which demonstrate the correlation of the distribution of one or more organisms with pollution source(s), and/or the value of such correlations in monitoring the extent and severity of pollution emissions and effluents. The synergistic effects

of the sum total of factors involved will in all probability never be fully appreciated by means of multivariate analyses, but a representative spectrum of implicated pollutants has recently been subjected to this type of analysis[5]. Recent advances in physiological and analytical techniques have revealed the very wide range of elements, compounds and radionuclides accumulated by organisms, certain of which are having deleterious effects, even at moderately enhanced levels. Strong correlations between pollution level, plant distribution and elemental accumulation have been observed[2,6]. Heavy metal concentrations in plants, particularly bryophytes, have been used to evaluate aerial pollution over very extensive areas, such as Switzerland[7] and the gradient from northern to southern parts of Scandinavia[8]. Bioindicational studies consequent on the Chernobyl disaster have, quite naturally, given rise to a very considerable number of papers showing the impact of radionuclide fallout over major areas of Europe and elsewhere[9]. However, information on background levels is very often limited. Careful interpretation of elemental uptake in vitiated environments is therefore necessary; relative, rather than absolute, levels should be considered until more information is available on background levels. To what extent many of these elements are usefully employed in particular organisms is as yet unknown; many lichens and bryophytes, for example, certainly show a capacity for heavy metal uptake, and high concentrations have been recorded from those growing not only on metal-enriched soils and in vitiated environments, but also in habitats less affected by metal contamination[10]. The importance of determining background levels in biomonitors is exemplified by the following spatial and temporal studies. The spatial study by Seaward[11], based on the metal accumulation by a lichen species along a transect delineated near to Scunthorpe steelworks, showed an exponential decline in iron, manganese, copper, chromium and other elements with increasing distance from the pollution source. The dramatic diminution of most elemental levels occurred over a distance of less than 800m to levels which still appeared to be relatively high but could be demonstrated as being normal since background (control) levels for these elements in that particular lichen had already been credibly established. All too often, monitoring studies based on cartographical interpretations of pollutant accumulation by an organism are deficient owing to limitations in field sampling. Isopleths (contours) of pollution loads are frequently delimited on the basis of too few sampling points, very often dictated by the lack of available sampling material or suitable habitat, even landmass, to support it. The latter situation is exemplified by monitoring studies undertaken in and around urban and industrial complexes sited alongside major rivers, estuaries and coasts, often favoured locations for such developments. It is all too obvious that not only are biomonitors here restricted by topography, but also the siting of pollution gauges so as to counteract such deficiencies is not feasible.

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Without being too critical of the value of the heavy metal distribution patterns determined by Little and Martin[12] from plants growing in the vicinity of the Avonmouth industrial area, it is obvious from its geographical setting that sampling could only be undertaken in easterly quadrants within an arc stretching from the northeast to the southwest, and that the presence of the Severn Estuary precluded any form of sampling in the two western quadrants. The spatial relationship of the levels accumulated by unwashed and washed leaves with the wind-rose data is spectacular, but the easterly bias of the pollution burden cannot be fully tested in the absence of any westerly data. Similar spatial problems also arise from transect studies moving along ecoclines of study areas adjacent to shorelines, as the water bodies receive a high proportion of any local pollution via the prevailing winds; in such situations, the performance of the organisms used for monitoring may be dictated more by the factors of the natural ecocline than by the pollutants and the lack of any data from sites where, for example, prevailing winds are influential can result in unavoidably biased interpretation. The Chernobyl disaster typifies the many problems facing the researcher wishing to make temporal and spatial comparisons. Such information on radionuclide levels as is available is fragmentary, measurements prior to the disaster being almost non-existent for most regions, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. The problem is further exacerbated by the wide variation in analytical methods and techniques employed, and the particular radionuclides selected for investigation. Furthermore, the results obtained from analyses of biological materials are expressed in a variety of ways, in terms not only of the units employed but also of the wet/dry state of the samples examined, besides the need to compensate for the decay rate of the particular radionuclide since the initial disaster/shutdown of the nuclear reactor, and for the increase in the organisms biomass over the monitoring period. In addition to all these factors, it is necessary to bear in mind that the organism being tested would already have accumulated both natural and man-made radioelements which would have exaggerated the background level prior to the impact being measured. Standardization is also necessary in terms of the choice of experimental material to be analysed and the sites from which it is collected; these should as closely as possible exhibit uniform physical, chemical and biological properties, and each habitat should be subject to the narrowest possible amplitude of environmental factors. The potential for inconsistency through the use of a number of different species, each differing in its inherent capacity to accumulate the various radionuclides, and collected from a wide range of substrata and habitats experiencing various environmental conditions is all too obvious from the literature. Lichens are renowned for their ability to accumulate radionuclides and have naturally been extensively used for environmental monitoring in the case of the Chernobyl disaster. 137Caesium and 90Strontium are the most harmful of longterm contaminants to human beings, since they are efficiently absorbed by living material, being chemically related to the physiologically important

elements potassium and calcium; caesium and strontium have received more attention in lichen studies than any other radionuclides owing to their role in the lichen reindeer(caribou) human food-chain. However, lichens are notoriously difficult to identify and, since species differ in their ecological behaviour and their physiological receptivity, taxonomic consistency is an essential prerequisite for any monitoring programme. The ability of a particular lichen species to accumulate radionuclides may better reflect its ecological circumstances than its morphological, physiological and genetic characteristics. In the case of radionuclide monitoring by lichens in Poland, before and after the Chernobyl disaster, by Kwapulinski et al.[13,14] and Seaward et al.[15], members of a single genus have proved ideal: they display morphological simplicity and dominate exposed rock surfaces, with an acceptable degree of physico-chemical uniformity, to such an extent that reasonable biomasses are available for random sampling without depleting the stock available for future comparative monitoring. This is particularly important since lichens are extremely slow-growing (only one to a few millimetres per annum in temperate latitudes) and can live for many years, thereby effectively operating as temporal monitors of the environment. In view of the Chernobyl disaster which happened on 26 April 1986, the Polish lichen-monitoring programme initiated in 1978 which was based on 20 sites, and numerous sub-sites, throughout south-west Poland was fortunate in having baseline radioactivity data. These revealed that elevated background levels of radionuclides already existed at numerous sites owing to inherent geological features, nuclear weapon testing prior to the mid-1960s, and, most importantly, recent emissions of radioelements from chimney stacks of powerstations burning brown coal (lignite) commonly found in that region of Central Europe. Naturally, the Chernobyl disaster exacerbated the problem, as testified by the measurements made of similar lichen material collected from the same sampling sites in 1986, 1988 and 1990. 137Caesium measurements, for example, showed startling increases, up to 165-fold, on those monitored prior to the disaster; such multiplications of levels must, however, take into account the fact that enhanced levels already existed at many sites. Valid interpretation of radionuclide levels in Polish lichens has only been feasible through a detailed knowledge of existing levels of accumulation in particular species at the same sites over a period of time[9]. It is strongly recommended that similar ongoing biomonitoring programmes adopt standardized techniques and rigorous methodology in order to establish credibly comparative temporal and spatial analyses. Where Chernobyl is concerned, it will be necessary to monitor the environmental consequences well into the next century. Inadequate baseline and control data to allow both credible spatial and temporal comparisons to be made are exemplified by early studies of the impact on the blood-lead levels of local residents consequent on the opening of the motorway interchange, M6-A38(M), at Birmingham. No doubt the high level of

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public anxiety over this motorway development necessitated the speediest possible investigation: this did not allow sufficient time to build up a fully detailed and representative portfolio of existing (background) pollution levels of the ambient environment and of the populations within and without (controls) the study area. While one has sympathy for the hard-pressed researchers, it is most regrettable that the opportunity to undertake experimental work on such far-reaching and pioneering environmental monitoring should be intrinsically flawed. It is equally regrettable that so prestigious a journal as Nature should accept for publication a paper by Waldron[16] which was so obviously based on scientifically unsound evidence. Although there was an undoubted upward trend in the blood-lead levels of the local population over the study period, it is impossible for numerous reasons to make meaningful comparisons between the various data-sets. Problems over temporal intercomparisons mainly arose from major differences in the sample populations and the sampling methodologies employed; problems over spatial intercomparisons arose from the non-provision of a control group at distance from the study area and from the use of sample populations whose different lifestyles within and without the study area may or may not have already exacerbated their exposure to lead. Not only were low numbers of each population tested, but also the composition of sample groups differed on different occasions, taking no account of factors such as age structure, sex ratio, social habits (including smoking) and nature of employment. In addition, sampling was undertaken at different times of the year and a switch was made from capillary to venous blood for sample analysis in the light of skin contamination experienced using the former; both season and type of blood are known to affect blood-lead levels. No attempt was made from these studies spatially to relate individuals sampled with their proximity to the newly developed motorway complex and to the duration of their exposure to different lead pollution burdens experienced in home, work and leisure situations. Furthermore, no lead levels were provided for the physical environment of air, outdoor and indoor dusts, soils and water derived from motorway run-off, and of their direct and indirect contribution to bloodlead levels, some components of which may have been ingested rather than inhaled. In addition to all of the above shortcomings, there was no validation of the blood-lead level measurements through inter-laboratory comparison. Organisms, through their highly specific demands on environmental resources, can be usefully employed in pollution surveys, but their response to various concentrations of pollutants will vary from species to species, from individual to individual, and from tissue to tissue. Furthermore, these responses occur at three different levels of organization: (a) physical and/or chemical effect(s) at subcellular level, which may be detected by microscopical analysis; (b) visible, macroscopic effect(s); (c) accumulation of pollutants without injury[4,17]. It is the last two types of effect which are most widely used for pollution surveys involving bioindicators selected for their ability to respond specifically to a rise in concentration of a particular pollutant or for

their properties of accumulating one or more particular elements subsequently measured by chemical analysis. Since several metal contaminants may be acting independently, synergistically, or collectively with the metals bioassayed, field observations must be supported by laboratory work for a better understanding of mineral accumulation thresholds and possible interactions of the various metals involved. Although significantly higher metal contents can be found in organisms proximal to a contamination source, the levels of accumulation for different metals by the different species are highly variable; furthermore, intraspecific differences in elemental levels often reflect microenvironmental (microtopographical) variations (e.g. [18]). It is, however, possible to deduce from such work that species are hierarchical in their susceptibility to a particular pollution burden[3], and a detailed knowledge of extinction points may therefore be utilized to construct critical bioindication scales. Various transplantation techniques have been developed in connection with pollution studies, particularly those involving the use of bryophytes and lichens for monitoring purposes (e.g. [19]). In the case of lichens, this has often involved the transplantation of substantial pieces of substratum; for example, terrestrial lichen mats and epiphytes attached to branches have been effectively transplanted in order to investigate the effects of acid rain, heavy metals and radionuclides. The use of mosses, and to a lesser extent lichens, in nylon nets (moss-bags), a form of transplantation, has also been successfully employed for heavy metal pollution monitoring of air[20,21], and more recently water[22,23]. The slow metabolic activity and slow growth rate of lichens makes them depositories for, and samplers of, materials in prevailing environments[24]. Before one can appreciate data assembled from what might loosely be described as pollution studies, one must be aware of background levels of heavy metal accumulation; such base-line studies will often reveal that there are appreciably high and variable levels of ionic accumulation in control material. These levels vary from habitat to habitat, and from species to species. Relative atmospheric and substratum contributions to the elemental content of plants should also be credibly established (e.g. [10]). It has been shown that the trace element content of lichens follows a pattern similar to that of atmospheric deposition and that inorganic composition analyses of their thalli can be effective in monitoring atmospheric contamination from urban, industrial and petrol engine sources. The proper use of lichens as indicators and samplers of ambient conditions is a valuable resource for the environmentalist[6]. Provided that there is sufficient resource material and that rigorous protocols for collection are adopted, periodic sampling of lichens and bryophytes for heavy metal determinations has proved valuable in documenting environmental change (e.g. [25,26]). Furthermore, lichens and bryophytes can be used for retrospective field sampling of heavy metals through the careful use of well-localized and dated herbarium material for which growth rates are known[27-29]. However, Robinson et al.[30] in their effort to gain information on the natural lead levels in old and modern Spanish moss in order to determine the impact of the

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automobile in the USA proved unsuccessful. They compared the lead levels of present day material of this epiphytic Bromeliad, widespread in the Louisiana region, with material used in stuffing for mid-nineteenth century couches and chairs now housed in a New Orleans Museum. Surprisingly, their results showed lead levels to be similar in both old and new Spanish moss, but they failed to account for this; obviously, the greater domestic use of lead in the former time and the longer period for the metal to be adsorbed on to the Spanish moss are not acknowledged. Such work clearly exemplifies many of the problems of environmental interpretation based on biomonitoring referred to above. Comparisons of certain element concentrations for suitably documented environmental material collected over the past 200 years would prove valuable in measuring changes in the quality of our environment and provide background measurements in the event of major environmental impacts and disasters[3]. The provision of banks of biological materials and soils, assembled by periodic sampling from clearly-defined sites, may be considered in this context; such material may be more profitably interpreted when even more sophisticated equipment has been developed. Concluding Remarks Why is it necessary to employ bioindicators to monitor pollution? Why not rely entirely on the use of physico-chemical devices to determine pollution levels? Equipment is very expensive to purchase and maintain; field-based equipment can only monitor single pollutants at fixed sites; measurements are often for a short-term period only, in many cases owing to malfunction of the apparatus or vandalism. Therefore, only a few sites monitoring a very limited number of specific pollutants can be covered for reasonably long periods of time. In 19671968, the National Survey of Smoke and Sulphur Dioxide in the United Kingdom utilized 1,205 gauges, of which only 763 provided sufficient data for the mean daily sulphur dioxide to be calculated; by 1991-1992, of the 280 gauges remaining in the national survey only 264 provided adequate data. Furthermore, on-site devices are not evenly spread over the country, often being concentrated on urban and/or industrial complexes; for example, in the above survey, only 95 (less than 8 per cent) of the 1967-1968 volumetric gauges were sited in rural areas, and by 1991-1992 these had reduced to 14 (5 per cent). Accepting that rural areas occupy about 95 per cent of the land surface, quite obviously coverage of very large regions of the United Kingdom, now known to be subject to blanket pollution as a consequence of a policy of the solution to pollution is dilution, is very poor. The use of corroborative information derived from biomonitoring surveys to support the limited data available formerly from rural sites and now from both urban and rural sites is recommended to those involved in planning and environmental health. Organisms are subjected to fluctuating levels of all ambient pollutants, often over relatively long periods of time; physico-chemical monitoring devices only provide a mechanical record of the level of a pollutant in the environment and not of the extent to which it is actually taken up by living tissue. Furthermore,

distributional studies and random monitoring by plants and animals, and the results so obtained, are more readily understood by the general public. It will never be possible to replace direct physical and chemical measurements of pollutant concentrations by monitoring with organisms. Biological monitoring should, however, be considered as complementary to, rather than as a replacement for, measurements recorded by physico-chemical means so that detailed and/or large-scale pollution surveys can be made, where the extensive use of technical equipment is costly or impractical. Monitoring air, water and soil contamination by means of plants, animals, bacteria and fungi, as well as abiotic materials, will be increasingly in demand for assessing environmental quality, environmental impacts, and health and safety. It is essential that environmental monitoring by means of bioassays is credibly based on standardized procedures[31-34] and substantial scientific evidence.
References 1. Martin, M.H. and Coughtrey, P.J., Biological Monitoring of Heavy Metal Pollution, Applied Science Publishers, London, 1982. 2. Burton, M.A.S., Biological Monitoring of Environmental Contaminants (Plants), Monitoring and Assessment Research Centre, Technical Report No. 32, Kings College, London, 1986. 3. Seaward, M.R.D., The Use and Abuse of Heavy Metal Bioassays of Lichens for Environmental Monitoring, in Spaleny, J. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference Bioindicatores Deteriorisationis Regionis, September 1977, Liblice, Academia, Praha, 1980, pp. 375-84. 4. Seaward, M.R.D., The Use and Abuse of Bio-indicators in Air Pollution Surveys, Standing Conference of Co-operating Bodies 88/5, Warren Spring Laboratory, Stevenage, 1977. 5. Herzig, R. and Urech, M., Flechten als Bioindikatoren, Bibliotheca Lichenologica, Vol. 43, 1991, pp. 1-283. 6. Markert, B. (Ed.), Plants as Biomonitors: Indicators for Heavy Metals in the Terrestrial Environment, VCH, Weinheim, 1993. 7. Thni, L., Schmid-Grob, I. and Hertz, J., Analytische Vergleichsmessungen an Moosen und an Bergerhoffproben aum Aussagewert von Schwermetallmessungen mit Hilfe von Moosen als Biomonitoren, VDI Berichte, Vol. 901, 1991, pp. 705-10. 8. Rhling, A. and Tyler, G., Regional Differences in the Deposition of Heavy Metals over Scandinavia, Journal of Applied Ecology, Vol. 8, 1971, pp. 487-507. 9. Seaward, M.R.D., Lichens, Silent Witnesses of the Chernobyl Disaster, Inaugural Lecture, University of Bradford, 1992. 10. Nieboer, E., Richardson, D.H.S. and Tomassini, F.D., Mineral Uptake and Release by Lichens: An Overview, Bryologist, Vol. 81, 1978, pp. 226-46. 11. Seaward, M.R.D., Lichen Ecology of the Scunthorpe Heathlands. I. Mineral Accumulation, Lichenologist, Vol. 5, 1973, pp. 423-33. 12. Little, P. and Martin, M.H., A Survey of Zinc, Lead and Cadmium in Soil and Natural Vegetation around a Smelting Complex, Environmental Pollution, Vol. 3, 1972, pp. 241-54. 13. Kwapulinski, J., Seaward, M.R.D. and Bylinska, E.A., 137Caesium Content of Umbilicaria Species, with Particular Reference to Altitude, Science of the Total Environment, Vol. 41, 1985, pp. 125-33. 14. Kwapulinski, J., Seaward, M.R.D. and Bylinska, E.A., Uptake of 226Radium and 228Radium by the Lichen Genus Umbilicaria, Science of the Total Environment, Vol. 41, 1985, pp. 13541.

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15. Seaward, M.R.D., Heslop, J.A., Green, D. and Bylinska, E.A.,Recent Levels of Radionuclides in Lichens from Southwest Poland with Particular Reference to 134Cs and 137Cs, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, Vol. 7, 1988, pp. 123-9. 16. Waldron, H.A., Lead Levels in Blood of Residents near the M6 A38(M) Interchange, Birmingham, Nature, Vol. 253, 1975, pp. 345-6. 17. Heck, W.W., The Use of Plants as Indicators of Air Polution, Air and Water Pollution International Journal, Vol. 10, 1966, pp. 99-111. 18. Goyal, R. and Seaward, M.R.D., Lichen Ecology of the Scunthorpe Heathlands. II. Industrial Metal Fallout Pattern from Lichen and Soil Assays, Lichenologist, Vol. 13, 1981, pp. 289-300. 19. Gailey, F.A.Y., Smith, G.H., Rintoul, L.J. and Lloyd, O.L., Metal Deposition Patterns in Central Scotland, as Determined by Lichen Transplants, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Vol. 5, 1985, pp. 291-309. 20. Goodman, G.T. and Roberts, T.M., Plants and Soils as Indicators of Metals in the Air, Nature, Vol. 231, 1971, pp. 287-92. 21. Makinen, A., Sphagnum Moss-bags in Air Pollution Monitoring in the City of Helsinki, Symposia Biologica Hungarica, Vol. 35, 1987, pp. 755-76. 22. Kelly, M.G., Girton, C. and Whitton, B.A., Use of Moss-bags for Monitoring Heavy Metals in Rivers, Water Research, Vol. 21, 1987, pp. 1429-35. 23. Sergio, C., Seneca, A., Maguas, C. and Branquinho, C., Biological Responses of Sphagnum auriculatum Schimp. to Water Pollution by Heavy Metals, Cryptogamie, Bryologie Lichnologie, Vol. 13, 1992, pp. 155-63. 24. Tyler, G., Uptake, Retention and Toxicity of Heavy Metals in Lichens, Water Air Soil Pollution, Vol. 47, 1989, pp. 321-33. 25. Johnsen, I. and Rasmussen, L., Retrospective Study (1944-1976) of Heavy Metals in the Epiphyte Pterogonium gracile Collected from One Porophyte, Bryologist, Vol. 80, 1977, pp. 625-9. 26. Rasmussen, L., Epiphytic Bryophytes as Indicators of the Changes in Background Levels of Airborne Metals from 1951-1975, Environmental Pollution, Vol. 14, 1977, pp. 37-45. 27. Rhling, A. and Tyler, G., An Ecological Approach to the Lead Problem, Botanisker Notiser, Vol. 121, 1968, pp. 321-42. 28. Lawrey, J.D. and Hale, M.E., Retrospective Study of Lichen Lead Accumulation in the Northeastern United States, Bryologist, Vol. 84, 1987, pp. 449-56. 29. Monitoring and Assessment Research Centre, Historical Monitoring, MARC Technical Report No. 31, Kings College, London, 1985. 30. Robinson, J.W., Christian, C.M., Martinez, J.D. and Nathany, M., Spanish Moss as an Indicator of Lead in the Atmosphere before the Use of Leaded Gasoline, Environmental Letters, Vol. 4, 1973, pp. 87-93. 31. Cornelis, R., Quality Control in Trace Element Analysis of Clinical and Biological Samples. How Good Are Your Data?, Journal of Trace Elements and Electrolytes in Health and Disease, Vol. 6, 1992, pp. 129-35. 32. Quevauviller, P., Maier, E.A. and Griepink, B., Projects for the Improvement in the Quality of Chemical Speciation Analyses in Environmental Matrices, Fresenius Journal of Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 53, 1993, pp. 233-42. 33. Quevauviller, P., Van Renterghem, D., Muntau, H. and Griepink, B., Intercomparison to Improve the Quality of Trace Element Determination in Lichens, International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 53, 1993, pp. 233-42. 34. Markert, B., Occurrence and Distribution of Chemical Elements in Plants Outlook and Further Research Plans, Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry., Vol. 40, 1993, pp. 31-41.