Diverse contaminants released into the environment through progress of urbanization and industrialization adversely affect human health. Among various sources of contaminants, especially, in big cities, automobiles play a significant role in aggravating the pollution. Various pollutants viz., heavy metals (Pb, Mn, Ni, Zn, As, Hg, Cd) and Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (Benzo-apyrene, fluoranthene, p...

Roadside grasslands undergoing secondary succession are abundant, and represent ecologically meaningful examples of novel, human-created ecosystems. Interactions between plant and soil communities (hereafter plant-soil interactions) are of major importance in understanding the role of biotic control in ecosystem functioning, but little is known about these links in the context of ecosystem rest...

background: the main objective of this study was to determine the respiratory health symptoms and lung function among roadside hawkers in serdang, malaysia and its association with traffic-related exposures. methods: this cross-sectional comparative study was conducted among 60 roadside hawkers while 60 restaurant workers were included as the comparative group in 2015. a questionnaire was used ...

Plants inhabiting degraded habitats must contend with stressful environments. However, their ability to adapt may be constrained by available genetic variation and genetic correlations between traits. Here, we examine the correlation between salt and drought tolerance in germinating seeds from contrasting populations of common teasel (Dipsacus fullonum subsp. sylvestris) growing on roadsides th...

Automobile catalytic converters are dispersing platinum-group elements (PGEs) Rh, Pt, and Pd into the environment (1-3). This paper represents the first detailed study to assess the PGE content of soils and grasses from U.S. roadsides. These soils were analyzed using cation exchange pretreatment and ultrasonic nebulizer-ICP-MS (4). Highway and several urban sites showed Pt abundances of 64-73 n...

The 26 sample sites in 7 study plots adjacent to asphalt road and earth road in coastal wetland in the Yellow River Delta were selected to quantify plant diversity using quadrat sampling method in plant bloom phase of July and August 2012. The indice of β T and Jaccard's coefficient were applied to evaluate the species diversity. The results showed that the plant diversities and alien plants we...