PLANT ADAPTATION TO ANTHROPOGENIC FACTORS - 2017

INTRODUCTION

Since the dawn of civilization, humanity has utilized natural resources to meet its needs. However, the pace of this process has accelerated dramatically over recent centuries, particularly with the advent of the industrial boom. Industrialization has provided society with manufactured goods and certain social benefits. Yet, this progress has been accompanied by the release of numerous undesirable pollutants into the environment and has created new societal challenges. Alongside this, a critical issue has emerged: environmental degradation. Ecological problems are now threatening the very existence of living organisms. The environment, upon which our lives depend, has been sacrificed to pollution driven by unplanned, unscientific urbanization, industrialization, and resource extraction.

The state of the environment affects every aspect of life for living organisms, including humans. Prior to the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, Structure/19.html">The Importance of environmental protection for improving human living standards was not widely recognized. In 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (UN Conference on Environment and Development), world leaders convened to take direct action toward improving the global environment. Environmental protection is also the focus of the Kyoto Protocol (December 1997), which limits greenhouse gas emissions and entered into force in 2005.

At the same time, it should be noted that environmental pollution acts as a novel ecological factor for plants, severely limiting their physiological processes. Over a short period, adaptive changes in living organisms in response to environmental pollutants and contaminants can occur only within the limits of phenotypic plasticity. In other words, stable genetic alterations have not yet taken place. Therefore, investigating both the mechanisms of pollutant action and the stress-response reactions of plant organisms is of paramount importance.

This textbook presents MODERN CONCEPTS OF environmental pollution and the mechanisms of its impact on plants. It outlines the causes of damage as well as the manifestations of resistance in individual plant organisms and their communities. The textbook can be utilized when studying the module "Plant Resistance" within the courses "Plant Physiology and Biochemistry" and "Ecology", as well as in specialized courses such as "Plant Resistance", "Physiology of Plant Resistance", "Urban Ecology", "Plant Ecophysiology", and "Physiology of Plant Adaptations". It is intended for students majoring in "Biology", "Ecology", and "Secondary Education" at higher educational institutions with a biological focus.