Functional adaptation of Quercus robur L. and Cercidiphyllum japonicum Siebold et Zucc. in the urban landscapes of Lviv

The general trends in the purity changes of the environment in connection with the urbanistic technogenesis were analyzed on the example of the largest city of Western Ukraine – Lviv – and its outskirts, Dublyany. The characteristic changes of some parameters of the main environmental factors – transformed ecosystems, including biogeochemical properties of edaphotope and pollution by heavy metals are described. Urbanization leads to a tendency of parkerising, alkalinization and significant measure of green zone soil contamination with heavy metals. The increase of the complex pressure of urban anthropogenic environment on vegetation is revealed and current changes of the chemical composition of dry matter of leaves of trees in terms of heavy metal content and structure-energy metabolites are analyzed. A significant accumulation of some chemical elements in the assimilation system of Quercus robur L. and Cercidiphyllum japonicum Siebold et Zucc. was found, their species-specific features of ash accumulative ability were revealed. Cercidiphyllum japonicum is proved to be a promising and effective, in terms of cleaning the environment from man-made pollution, decorative plant in the green belt of cities in the regions of Roztochchia and Pasmove Pobuzhya. Under the influence of edaphotope transformation and pollution in the assimilation bodies of woody plants some structural and metabolic changes occur to adapt to the new to their species environment. Oak as autochthonous species, has signs of stability of the metabolic system of assimilation to the urban genic changes. Cercidiphyllum’s structure demonstrates plasticity of dry matter of leaves, designed to adapt to the new environment acclimatization of exotic species, and thus performs an effective metal storage function in a green area of the city.

The separation of softwood and hardwood in historical wooden statues of the Nazenji-temple in Japan using NIR spectroscopy

The applicability of near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to the identification of wood species of archaeologically/historically valuable wooden artifacts in a non-invasive manner was investigated using reference wood samples from the xylarium of the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (TWTw) and applied to several wooden statues carved about 1000 years ago. Diffuse-reflectance NIR spectra were obtained from five standard wood samples each of five softwood species (Chamaecyparis obtusa, Cryptomeria japonica, Sciadopitys verticillata, Thujopsis dolabrata, Torreya nucifera) and five hardwood species (Aesculus turbinata, Cercidiphyllum japonicum, Cinnamomum camphora, Prunus jamasakura, Zelkova serrata). A principal component analysis (PCA) model was developed from the second derivative spectra. The score plot of the first two components clearly showed separation of the wood sample data into softwood and hardwood clusters. The developed PCA model was applied to 370 spectra collected from 21 wooden statues preserved in the Nazenji-temple in Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan, including 14 made from Torreya spp. and 7 made from Cinnamomum spp. In the score plot, the statue spectra were also divided into two clusters, corresponding to either softwood (Torreya spp.) or hardwood (Cinnnamomum spp.) species. These results show that NIR spectroscopy combined with PCA is a powerful technique for determining whether archaeologically/historically valuable wooden artifacts are made of softwood or hardwood.