NIR-spectroscopic investigation of foliage of ozone-stressed <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fagus sylvatica</Emphasis> trees

Near infrared (NIR) reflectance spectroscopy was tested as a fast method for characterizing the toxic effects of air pollution on trees. Fagus sylvatica was exposed to known, different levels of ozone during summer of 2003 in plant chambers. Leaves were taken from the plants and NIR spectra were recorded. In order to derive calibration models, reference analyses were carried out and soluble carbohydrates were determined by an enzymatic method. Minor components, like α-tocopherol, were measured after solvent extraction using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. A partial least squares (PLS) algorithm was used to perform the chemometric analyses. Good or in some cases very good calibration statistics expressed in terms of root mean square error of cross validation and R² were obtained for glucose, fructose, sucrose, and α-tocopherol. In addition, a better than expected correlation between the NIR spectra of the leaves and the ozone concentration in the plant chambers was observed. NIR spectroscopy appears to be a very useful method to simultaneously determine many components in leaves that are related to the health of trees. It is obviously able to quantitatively describe the changing patterns of constituents in leaves of trees caused by toxic substances. Thus, NIR spectroscopy can be a very effective tool for environmental biomonitoring, especially for observation of forests.