Cryptogamic Organisms as Pioneers of the Northern Taiga Recovery Affected under the Conditions of Lowered Industrial Air Pollution
The restoration process of the ground vegetation cover in the areas affected by the Severonikel Smelter in Monchegorsk, Murmansk Region is studied. Cryptogamic organisms are the first to colonize areas where the ground vegetation cover was destroyed as a result of industrial air pollution above the critical level. For the first time, lichen and bryophyte species with the highest tolerance to toxicity and capable of growing in the conditions of an anthropogenic desert have been determined. These are liverworts Isopaches bicrenatus, Nardia geoscyphus, Gymnocolea inflata, Solenostoma confertissimum and mosses Pohlia nutans and Dicranella cerviculata. It was found that colonization by pioneer lichen species, even those highly adapted to extreme concentrations of heavy metals (Stereocaulon leucophaeopsis and St. pileatum), requires a bryophyte sod layer as a substrate. In total, within the area directly affected by the copper and nickel smelter (1.7–10 km), 18 bryophyte species and 13 lichen species were found: in the anthropogenic desert (1.7–2.7 km), six and one species; in the anthropogenic wasteland (4–6.5 km), ten and five species; in the anthropogenic sparse woodland (7–10 km), 15 and 11 species, respectively. Signs of ground cover recovery and a noticeable (by a factor of 2 to 3) increase in the diversity of the ground layer cryptogamic biota were observed at a distance of 6.5–10 km from the pollution source with a decrease in the deposition of sulfates by a factor of 2.5–3, of Ni by a factor of 17, and of Cu by a factor of 20.