ALMA IMERI, LIRIKA KUPE, ELISABETH GROSS, ALMA SHEHU, JULIAN SHEHU
Department of Plant Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, Agricultural University of Tirana, Albania
Laboratoire Interdisciplinary des Environments Continentaux (LIEC) UMR 7360 CNRS, Université de Lorraine
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tirana, Albania.
*Corresponding author e-mail: bioalma_79@yahoo.com
Abstract
We use aquatic plants to analyze the heavy metal pollution of a lake environment; they have a number of advantages over the standard chemical methods of the analysis of metal presence in lakes. The macrophyta Chara tomentosa L., sampled from Lake Ohrid in Macedonian part, has been used as a bio-indicator. It can accumulate metals from water. Bioaccumulation of heavy metals (Cu, Cd, Ni, Fe and Pb) was examined by atomic absorption spectrophotometer in Ohrid lake samples of two different depths. This is a first experience for this specie in Ohrid Lake, and I am interested with these results to monitor, at some other sites. The experimental results clearly shows that Fe and Ni were the metals found in higher concentration followed by Cr and Cu whilst Pb and Cd were found in low levels. Concentration of all studied metals resulted to be higher in plant species collected at 5 m depth compared to that sampled at 10 m depth (a = 0.05) except for Pb and Cd, which contents did not represent significant variation in different depths (a = 0.05). Chara tomentosa can accumulate heavy metal ions from the sediment as well as from the water were they grow.
Key words: Chara tomentosa, bioaccumulation, heavy metals, Ohrid Lake.
