Indicator plants of anthropogenic disturbances: scientific approach, educational technologies

. The technology of using the indicative properties of plants both for obtaining scientific results and teaching this technique to students and young scientists is proposed for implementation. Aspects of research organization and didactic work in the implementation of the environmental monitoring program of Donbass are highlighted. Over the period of research (1996-2023), high levels of pollution and anthropogenic transformation of ecosystems in the industrial areas of Eastern Europe have been established. The data are based both on experiments in open landscapes and laboratory conditions, special procedures for statistical processing and interpretation of the results. These localities of intensive economic use are the places of great scientific and applied interest to ecologists and educators in this area. Indicator plants are visual objects in the knowledge of the fundamental nature and practical use for information about the quality of the environment. In scientific and educational activities the following are important: organization of a laboratory, availability of equipment, functioning of a museum, a card-index, a herbarium fund, the possibility of introducing case studies technology, the theory of solving inventive tasks, conducting interactive lectures, seminars, demonstration experiments and special modern technologies for training environmental specialists – modeling and land-use forecasting and urbanized environment. Methods of implementation of scientific and pedagogical experiment on phytomonitoring and ecological expertise with the help of plants have been introduced into work with students, postgraduates and young scientists of the Department of Botany and Ecology of Donetsk State University.


Introduction
At the present stage, in regions with intensive economic activity, there is an urgent need to assess the state of the environment [1][2].In many cases, scientists use indices of the state of living organisms, the health of the population and the levels of landscapes stability [1][2][3][4].The basic problem includes environmental pollution [5][6] and methods for diagnosing high concentrations of toxic elements [5][6][7][8].The identification of plant indicative features for polluted regions requires a specially developed methodology and the use of modern equipment [9][10].
The territory of Donbass is the leader of toxic pollution of the air, water and soil [11,12] in Eastern Europe in terms of high anthropogenic environmental changes.This situation forces scientists to engage in environmental monitoring [11][12][13][14] and use plants as available materials for rapid examination [12,[15][16].It was previously established that plants can be reliable indicators of the state of an industrially polluted environment [17], including mossy [18][19] and flowering plants [14][15]17].
The purpose of the work is to identify scientific patterns in the identification of plants by their indicative properties, to use the data obtained in the process of teaching students and young scientists (methodological techniques, a set of didactic material).

Materials and Methods
The territory of Donbass was chosen as the object of the study.Accounting sites were selected in a large location connecting 9 large industrial cities.These points were determined for cartographic analysis and collection of plant material [11,14,16].Methods of structural botany and ecology [8,[17][18][19][20] and plant physiology [21][22] were used for botanical research.The methodological part of the scientific work is based on the concept of species and ecosystems sustainability in ecologically unfavourable regions [23,24].The general regularities of the state of plants according to the forms of their oppression are highlighted [12,25] with modifications to local geochemical characteristics and conditions for the formation of landscapes in Donbass [12,[18][19]26].To conduct the experiment, methods of environmental monitoring [1,[27][28] and methods of assessing the state of ecosystems in polluted regions [29,30], including biological species, were used.
The main assessment was based on obtaining a difference in the structure of plants of different local ecosystems [11].If such a structural difference could be established in connection with the pollution of the plant habitat, then the next stage was the calculation of the ecological scale for individual plant species or individual characteristics [14].The work on phytoindication and monitoring of industrial pollution in Donbass using plants was started in 1996 and continues at the present stage (2023), even without interruption during particularly difficult periods of social conflict and destruction of ecosystems and scientific infrastructure in the region.Annual comparisons make it possible to verify the previously obtained results and plan the search for new data on the state of ecosystems using plant material.Since students and young scientists have been involved in this direction every year, there is a need to create clear instructions for the collection and identification of indicator plants, the use of available techniques in teaching scientific procedures to them.
Therefore, the methodological part of the work consists not only in obtaining information about the state of the environment, but also in training specialists who would perform the laboratory and analytical parts of the work.In the future, such a monitoring system can be automated for continuous environmental monitoring.

Results
Scientific activity is organized in the direction of diagnostics of natural and transformed ecotopes according to the state of phytocomponents.This direction allows to solve the problems of technical collection of plant material, determining the dependences in the structure of plants on the conditions of their existence.The flora of the central Donbass counts 2,060 species of vascular plants belonging to 713 genera and 143 families.Today 164 species of flowering plants and 64 species of bryophytes are involved in the phytoindication experiment (using the example of technogenic ecotopes of Donbass).
During the years of research (1996-2023), the following scientific and technical tasks were solved: 1) formation of a unified monitoring grid (observation network), including urban, industrial agglomerations, agricultural participants and protected areas -113 monitoring points of different densities of mutual location; 2) places of intensive transformation of ecosystems (more than 40% of the territory) were selected as experimental sites, which were compared with the state of plant organisms in intact ecosystems -reference objects of natural environments with a minimum level of anthropogenic impact (more than 8% of the territory), as a rule, these are species with a wide ecological amplitude.Representatives of Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Fabaceae, Rosaceae, Poaceae, Lamiaceae, Boraginaceae, Plantaginaceae, Pottiaceae, Bryaceae and Brachtheciaceae are characterized by resistance to industrial pollution; 3) the ranked ranges of ecological values for plants were used in the calculation of indicator scales showing the specifics of pollution (mechanical transformation or toxic load) in the Donetsk economic region; scales of variation of structural and functional characteristics in a certain range of parameter values reflect the degree of morphological tolerance of a plant to factors of an unfavorable environment; 4) all collection points had their own coordinates, so the data obtained could be presented in the form of ecological maps, for example, according to the level of teratogenesis, ecological plasticity of indicator plants (Achillea collina J. Becker ex Rchb., Artemisia absinthium L., Berteroa incana (L.) DC., Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medik., Centaurea diffusa Lam., Cichorium intybus L., Diplotaxis muralis (L.) DC., Echium vulgare L., Melilotus officinalis (L.) Pall., Plantago lanceolata L., Reseda lutea L., Senecio vulgaris L., Tanacetum vulgare L., Thlaspi arvense L., Tripleurospermum inodorum (L.) Sch.Bip.); 5) according to indicator scales and maps, the dynamics of indicators in different years was established, the most unfavourable years in the system of imbalance of natural characteristics in the Donbass were determined; ecological scales and ranges of morphological plasticity of native plant species have been created to assess pollution, special indexes are plotted on the maps of the area, this allows to track the territories of ecological disaster and risk for living; 6) independent ecological expertise with the help of plants made it possible to establish the locations of enterprises with the highest emissions of pollutants (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013), localization of places of intensive military intervention in the ecosystem structures (2014-2023); 7) the sites that significantly reduced emissions due to the use of modern technologies (2010-2013) or mothballed their production (2014-2019) were also identified; 8) due to the difference in the thermal effect from many metallurgical and coal mining enterprises, local effects of the influence of microclimate on the conditions of plants and plant associations in these monitoring points were established; 9) an experiment was carried out on the transplantation of bryophytes in places of different environmental characteristics to detect geochemical anomalies or background concentrations of pollutants; Si (158000-160000) ˃ Fe (72000-73000) ˃ Al (38400-39000) ˃ Ca (38000-38400) ˃ Mg (16700-16800) ˃ K (9300-9500) ˃ Na (4100-4200) ˃ Ti Brachythecium albicans (Hedw.)Bruch et al., Dicranella cerviculata (Hedw.)Schimp., Ditrichum pussilum (Hedw.)Hampe., Homomallium incurvatum (Schrad.ex Brid) Loeske, Marchantia polymorpha L. и Pleuridium acuminatum Lindb.; 11) new (invasive) plant species are characterized by wide expansion and also exhibit a high level of structural polymorphism, most of them belong to quarantine and weed species and indicate places of local changes in soil cover or violations of the integrity of native phytocenoses; the features of the accumulation of heavy metals and associated pollutants in certain parts of the plant were traced.Groups of hyperaccumulator plants and transformer species were identified for toxic natural environments: air, soil and water; 12) in some local ecotopes, with the help of phytoindication technology, places of abrupt transformation of the soil and vegetation horizon due to underground utilities maintenance and places of local military activity were identified; 13) methods of restoration of natural vegetation cover were introduced (Amaranthus retroflexus L., Ambrosia artemisiifolia L., Artemisia vulgaris L., Cyclachaena xanthiifolia (Nutt.)Fresen., Plantago major L., Tragopogon major Jacq., Aulacomnium palustre (Hedw.)Schwägr., Brachythecium mildeanum (Schimp.)Schimp., Brachythecium salebrosum (F.Weber & D. Mohr) Bruch et al., Grimmia pulvinata (Hedw.)Sm., Orthotrichum pallens Bruch ex Brid., Orthotrichum pumilum Sw. ex anon., Plagiomnium cuspidatum (Hedw.)T. Kop., Pleurozium schreberi (Brid.)Mitt., Syntrichia ruralis (Hedw.)F. Weber & Mohr, Tortula mucronifolia Schwägr., Weissia controversa Hedw); with the formation of resistant populations to additional stress factors, the process of hybridization and speciation is accelerated.
Among the main information features in the structure of plants we distinguished: trychomes in the leaf structure, the shape and condition of the leaf blade, the architectonics of the stem, the shape of the shoot, the tissues of the embryo, the surface of the seeds, the details of the flower and inflorescence structure (Berteroa incana (L.) DC., Diplotaxis muralis (L.) DC., Sinapis alba L., Senecio vulgaris L., Dactilis glomerata L., genus Bromus L., Bromopsis (Dumort.)Fourr., Elytrigia Desv., Festuca L. genus Poa L.).We also studied the dynamics (from 1996 to 2023) of the appearance of abnormalities (ugly forms) of plant structure (in appearance, for seeds, fruits, pollen).A special account of new species (quarantine) is being carried out.Such species significantly change plant communities in their standard state, which creates a danger to the sustainability of ecosystems.
An active method was applied in the education system, which is used for training specialists at universities and for advanced training.For example, -author's specialized courses were added to the educational process of biologists and ecologists Bioindication, Phytomonitoring, Ecology of indicator plants, Phytoindication of technogenic pollutants, Monitoring of natural environments, Phytoquantification of urbanized environment, Phytoindication technologies, Reproductive strategies of plants; -problem lectures were held: Assessment of air in the city, Assessment of soil quality near the metallurgical plant, Environmental impact assessment in Donbass, Where and how the air is polluted in Donbass, Is it important or not to know the truth about environmental pollution; -special seminars and discussions, meetings with scientists and technical workers of environmental services: Waste recycling technologies in the region, How the air condition is assessed: tools, instruments, quality calculation, Can environmentalists change the characteristics of the environment?, Conclusions from the events on environmental management in the Donbass; -discussions: Are there many or few harmful substances around us?, How does humanity adapt to difficult conditions?, Mechanisms of sustainability of ecosystems and individual plants, Problems in risk assessment for residents of polluted regions; -lectures with planned mistakes and the search for the true answers: How to distinguish mercury pollution from cadmium pollution, How much water needs to be cleaned after an environmental disaster, Why experiments on landscape sustainability are needed, -press conferences: The state of the ecosystems of Donbass, Threats to the life of speciesextinction or survival?,In which places are there abnormal concentrations of harmful substances?, internships (Modern ecology, Sustainable development, Environmental monitoring of the urban environment, Environmental expertise, Environmental impact assessment).
The group of simulation methods uses different educational technologies (Table 1) The Department of Botany and Ecology of Donetsk State University has formed a methodological and didactic basis for the accumulation and processing of environmental knowledge and data, which is then necessarily used in educational activities.The tasks of the qualifying stage of the Olympiad on Ecology and the final stages for 2010-2023 have been summarized in methodological and didactic developments.

Discussion
In oral comments of skeptics, there are always opinions about impossibility of standardizing methods of phyto-indicative assessment of the environment, or barriers to conducting a clean experiment in open landscape systems.However, it must be recognized that for current problems of an industrial region in the steppe zone of Europe, phytoindication methods have remained in demand from 2014 to 2023, and in many real cases they are even fundamentally uncontested.
The traditional form of phytoindication monitoring introduction (ecological and botanical quantification) in Donbass is expert.Approaches based on the principle of "control -experience", "indicator -indicator" have been tested in field or laboratory conditions [5,6,18,24].Based on statistical reliability [3,4,27,29], a conclusion is made about the presence of environmental impacts (specific forms, but mainly for integral assessment).Based on the scales and indices, paired and complex correlation analyses were carried out, levels of reliability and significance were established, cartographic material was created [9,11,18], which, by its technological application [14,19], is also a source of primary information when, for example, establishing geochemical provinces [7,8,19,21], pollution territories, migration of a multi-species populations [2,8,12,27].Due to the obtained planar models and established successional processes in biogeochemical indices of well-being, materials have been prepared for management consideration of ecological disaster zones localization, risk, increased danger [9,16,30]; a network of ecological corridors connecting the biogeocenotic cores of the reference ecosystems of the region has been developed.Therefore, the system of implementation of the indicative and informational functions of the biosphere is considered on the above examples [7,19].Most of these examples are associated with the results of ingredient monitoring -the concentration function of a living matter is realized.

Conclusions
The leading role of the phytoindication component in regional monitoring and decisionmaking programs for the control of adverse environmental impacts in Donbass during the protracted social conflict has been proved.During this period, the system of using other modern high-precision technologies sufficiently was not possible.Therefore, indicator plants in Donbass remain the most complete information source of the state of landscapes and ecosystems in general.
For the introduction of pedagogical technologies (on the example of higher education in Donbass) the system of ecological knowledge is an inexhaustible source of innovation, as well as an opportunity to cultivate moral values among the younger (learning) generation.
The stated scientific activity is a methodical, didactic and in many ways a material providing basis for the effective conduct of targeted environmental education.The importance of following the principles of collecting and processing information is also becoming an essential attribute of the implementation of public environmental monitoring.However, it is mandatory to add the educational function and a training program to this group of approaches for conducting experiments and tests, which is also a priority task in the social and economic development of the regions.The quality of environmental assessment is ensured by the quality of training specialists in this field.

Table 1 .
Educational technologies -modeling in ecology and didactics.What decision needs to be made, What are the rights and obligations of local residents, Lies or truth from the Committee on Ecology, Where does the money go to pay environmental fees Whether rainwater can be collected or not, Whether it is possible to use soil from open systems for domestic plants, The endurance of plants to pollution, What types of plants to use for landscaping slagheaps How to set up a microscope to see pollen; What dyes to use for structural botany; At what time to implement the experience of germination of plants, What structures are needed for the improvement of the vegetative laboratory