Correlation among carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and physiological parameters of Rinodina sophodes found at Kanpur city, India

Abstract: Accumulation of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur content in Rinodina sophodes, crustose poleotolerent lichen growing naturally in and around six sites of Kanpur city was estimated, and their influence on the photosynthetic pigments of the lichen was studied. Maximum carbon concentration was recorded at highly polluted area while higher accumulation of nitrogen was recorded near village in outskirt of the city having higher ammonia emission. The concentration of sulphur was not detected in most of the sites except a single site where it had a quite lower value (0.22%). Photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll a and b) increased parallel to the level of traffic density. Multiple correlation analysis revealed that chlorophyll a had highly significant correlation (1%) with chlorophyll b (r =0.9986) and total chlorophyll (r =0.9307). Carbon is directly correlated with nitrogen (r =0.3035), sulphur (r =0.1743) and chlorophyll degradation (r =0.2685) while negatively correlated with chlorophyll a (−0.3323), chlorophyll b (r =−0.3429) and total chlorophyll (r =−0.0824). Nitrogen showed negative correlation between all photosynthetic pigments and chlorophyll degradation, while in case of sulphur, it was high positive correlation at 1% with chlorophyll degradation (0.9445). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]