Elemental levels in twenty environmental matrices and temporal trends in normally and declining trees growth from Copsa Mica, Romania

Modern society faced significant challenges in the last decades as a result of environmental pollution and climate change. The current study's objective was to establish a pattern for assimilating HM in normally and declined Quercus robur L. trees. Also, was identify the present state and historical changes in heavy metal elemental composition using different approaches: i) twenty matrices including water, soil, sediments, mushrooms, acorn, leaves, branches, bark and wood; ii) tree-rings elemental time-series trends. Our research of elemental distribution in pedunculate oak earlywood tree-rings brings new viewpoints for investigating chronic decline and dieback using (LA-ICP-MS), (ICP-MS) and (AAS) technics. Impressive amounts of heavy metals in the background environment, especially in water and mushrooms indicate high environmental risk for human health. The Levene's t-test shows significant differences (p-valuet-test shows significant differences (p-valueAcknowledgementsThis work was supported by the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, Contract No. 12N/2019 (PN 19070502 "Evaluation by transdisciplinary techniques of the oak trees decline affected by actual environmental changes in the extra-Carpathian area – adaptation, mitigation and risks") and Contract No. 9N/2019 (PN 19110303" Advanced techniques for identifying sources of contamination and biochemical reactions in aquatic ecosystems" and PN19110302 "Research on the variation trends specific to stable isotopes in different tree species: deepening the fractionation mechanisms and the chemical processes interconnected on the soil-water-plant chain"), partially by CRESFORLIFE ID_40_380 - Subsidiary contract S16/2020.