ABSTRACT

Effect of vehicular emissions on chlorophyll, leaf areaand petiole length of Mangiferaindicaand Ixoracoccineawas carried out. Sampling was carried out at two locations namely Ring Road, Benin City and Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research, Edo State. The leaves of the two species were collected from these two areas with potentially higher and lower levels of air pollutant. Photosynthetic pigments chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b as well as leaf area were quantified and measured using an extraction method without macerating the leaves. The mean value of the total chlorophyll concentration index of Mangiferaindica for the polluted site and non-polluted site were; 0.9385 ± 0.0318 and 1.1677 ± 0.0392 respectively, while the mean value of the total chlorophyll concentration index of Ixoracoccineafor the polluted site and non-polluted site were; 1.1533 ± 0.0499 and 1.5825 ± 0.0381 respectively.Oneway ANOVA showed that the reduction in chlorophyll –a, -b and total chlorophyll concentration of both M.indicaand I.coccinealeaves were significantly different (P < 0.05) at the two study sites using DMR, Tukey HSD and SNK statistics.