Abstract
Aims. We study how chemical abundances of late B-, A-, and early F-type stars evolve with time, and we search for correlations between the abundance of chemical elements and other stellar parameters, such as effective temperature and ? sin i. Methods: We observed a large number of B-, A-, and F-type stars belonging to open clusters of different ages. In this paper we concentrate on the Praesepe cluster (log t = 8.85), for which we have obtained high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio spectra of sixteen normal A- and F-type stars and one Am star, using the SOPHIE spectrograph of the Observatoire de Haute-Provence. For all the observed stars, we derived fundamental parameters and chemical abundances. In addition, we discuss another eight Am stars belonging to the same cluster, for which the abundance analysis had been presented in a previous paper. Results: We find a strong correlation between the peculiarity of Am stars and ? sin i. The abundance of the elements underabundant in Am stars increases with ? sin i, while it decreases for the overabundant elements. Chemical abundances of various elements appear correlated with the iron abundance. Based on observations made at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence. Figures [see full textsee full textsee full text] to [see full textsee full textsee full text] are only available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org