The aim of the proposed research is to investigate the effects of UV-radiation on chemical composition, palatability and digestibility of summer pasture plants of reindeer. The studies are planned to be conducted in natural peatland ecosystems with (I) enhanced UV-B radiation, provided by UV-B lamps and (II) with UV-filtration experiments with the same plant species in reindeer pastures in the Lappi Reindeer Herding Cooperative in Eastern Finnish Lapland. The results will provide information about the effects of ambient and enhanced UV radiation on summer pastures of reindeer and can be used to evaluate their consequences on reindeer management

The assessment of O3-like foliar symptoms is increasingly considered in monitoring programs aimed at evaluating air pollution effects on forests. The results showed considerable spatial and temporal variation of O3-like foliar symptoms: year, subplot adn the interaction between year and plot were found significant factors. Symptoms resulted lower in 2001; there were differences of foliar symptoms between different subplot and overall the variation between years are considerably different according to the plot being considered. These findings suggest that O3-like foliar symptoms recorded on a small plot selected without a formal statistical approach and with no consideration of the apparently high variability of symptoms expression risk to introduce a serious bias in the evaluation of the potential ozone impact at a given site and its trend

Two holm oak (Quercus ilex L.) sites in Tuscany, Central Italy, were studied in July 2000. Leaf morphological characteristics (area, dry weight, specific dry weight, water content, epicuticular wax amount, stomatal density) and leaf fluorescence were measured. Ozone flux into the leaves was calculated on a stomatal conductance basis. Among the measured parameters, only stomatal density and wax amount significantly differed between the sites. This response might indicate an adaptation to air pollutants, of which tropospheric ozone might be of the greatest importance