Effects of trait variation, environment, and phylogeny on the air pollutant removal capacity of indoor plants
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Environmental Sciences, Plant Science
- Keywords
- Plant trait, Air pollution, Leaf area, Phylogenetic signal, Growth form, Photosynthesis pathway
- Copyright
- © 2015 Lu et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. Effects of trait variation, environment, and phylogeny on the air pollutant removal capacity of indoor plants. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1614v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1614v1
Abstract
Although it is well known that plants have the capacity to remove indoor air pollutants, there has been little research to investigate how this ability is regulated by the environment and evolutionary processes. In this study, we tested the capacity of 58 common indoor plants to remove three specific air pollutants. We also measured the traits, phylogenetic signals, and cultivated environments of these plants to analyze their relationship with the air pollutant removal capacity using Spearman’s correlation, Blomberg’s K test, and phylogenetic generalized least-squares. While we found trait variation had a significant correlation with removal capacity, we did not, however, detect a phylogenetic signal with removal capacity. Trait variation and environmental factors both contributed to the removal capacity in phylogenetic generalized least-squares, but again, without phylogeny. Our results show that plant trait variation, especially total leaf area, could play an important role in plant’s capacity to remove pollutants from indoor air. Moreover, environmental changes, not the phylogeny, could result in trait modification, improving the tolerance and purification capacities of these plants. The findings outlined here will help to explain how plants living with air pollution can adapt as well as the application of plants for the purpose of indoor air purification.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
The plant list with descriptions of plant trait and their cultivated environments
S1 Table. The plant list with descriptions of plant trait and their cultivated environments.
The PDP of each indoor plant species in 12-hour experiment
S2 Table. The PDP of each indoor plant species in 12-hour experiment. The explanation of species code was showed in S1 Table.
The phylogenetic tree of 58 indoor plants
S1 Fig. The phylogenetic tree of 58 indoor plants. The explanation of species’ codes were listed in S1 Table.