Technical NoteHyperaccumulation of zinc by Corydalis davidii in Zn-polluted soils
Highlights
► A new Zn-hyperaccumulator Corydalis davidii was found. ► C. davidii has high biomass in aboveground parts and high tolerance. ► C. davidii was useful to remove Zn from Zn-contaminated sites.
Introduction
Large areas of soils have been contaminated by heavy metals, which are detrimental to the growth, reproduction and development of living organisms including plants, animals and microorganisms (Liu et al., 2008, Fritsch et al., 2010). This phenomenon has even threatened the health of ecosystems and human beings (Xiao et al., 2004, Tang et al., 2009), and heavy metal pollution has become an urgent problem throughout the world. Phytoextraction is a new technology that uses metal-accumulating plants to extract the metals from contaminated soils (CS), groundwater or surface water, and has been proposed as an effective and affordable solution to clean up heavy metal contamination (Pulford and Watson, 2003, Xu et al., 2009). The application of hyperaccumulators may be one of the best choices for phytoextraction of soil contaminated by heavy metals because such hyperaccumulators can accumulate large amounts of metals in their harvestable parts which are relatively easy to dispose (McGrath and Zhao, 2003).
However, phytoextraction technology is not yet widely used in remediation practice, although more than 400 plant species have been identified as natural metal hyperaccumulators (Freeman et al., 2004). The problem is that most of the hyperaccumulators were native species restricted to specific sites, and had only very low biomass as well (Li et al., 2003). The amount of phytoextraction for heavy metals in CS is usually small by hyperaccumulators because of their low biomass, even though the contents of heavy metals in the harvested parts are high enough. Therefore, systematic screening of plants from the heavy metal polluted areas is of high importance, and may allow the identification of appropriate plant species for phytoremediation of metal-contaminated soils (Wang et al., 2009).
It is no doubt that metal smelters are the important anthropogenic sources of heavy metal pollution to local soils through metal releases of smelting slags (SL) and smelting fume depositions. Among them, artisanal zinc smelting activities using an indigenous method that have produced considerable metal pollution in China have aroused high concerns (Feng et al., 2004, Bi et al., 2006, Yang et al., 2006, Li et al., 2008). An excellent site that experienced long-term of artisanal zinc smelting activities using an indigenous method is from Hezhang County (104°10′–105°03′ E, 26°46′–27°28′ N), western Guizhou Province, China, where the Zn smelting activities were back to the 17th century but completely ceased in 2004 due to serious metal pollution. The local smelting activities applied with coal to burn zinc ores, sphalerite (ZnS) and/or calamine (ZnCO3), in column furnaces of ceramic jars under around 800 °C without any pollution control devices utilized during the whole zinc smelting processes (Feng et al., 2004). Such indigenous methods for Zn smelting has produced 20 Mt of open dumped SL and 1200 ha farmland polluted with Zn as well as Pb, Cd and Hg (Yang et al., 2006). Zn is an essential nutrient for normal growth and development of plants, however, excess Zn in soils caused by anthropogenic activities may retard the growth and development of plants, and induce damage to the ecosystem (An et al., 2006). Zn contamination is occurred widely in soil and water environments, and remediation for Zn contamination is an urgent issue to solve. For purpose of phytoremediation for Zn pollution in soils, an ecological survey was performed in the artisanal Zn smelting area in Hezhang County, and screened 14 dominant species including Buddleja lindleyana, Ixeris gracilis, Artemisia annua, Rhododendron simsi, Litsea cubeba, Sambucus Chinensis, Querus fabric, Senecio scandens, Smilax china, Polygonum posumbu, Corydalis davidii, Artemisia argyi, Sorbus megalocarpa, and Anemone hupehensis (Lin, 2009). Among them, the species of C. davidii was identified to have high potential to hyperaccumulate Zn. For the first time, we investigated the characteristics of growth, tolerance and Zn accumulation of C. davidii in both soil and hydroponic cultures. This paper aims to identify the hyperaccumulation of C. davidii and to estimate the remediation efficiency of C. davidii for Zn-polluted soils.
Section snippets
Field survey
The study area is located in the Magu smelting site (104°30′–104°58′ E, 26°45′–27°30′ N) is located in Hezhang County, Guizhou Province, China. The area exhibits a sub-tropical continental monsoon climate, with an annual average precipitation of 1200 mm and an annual average temperature of 12 °C. The study area is part of a karst terrain attaining an elevation of 2000–2200 m above sea level.
Three sites from the study area were selected for field survey and sample collection. The artisanal Zn
Substrate properties
The summary of properties of the three types of substrates, i.e. SL, CS and BS, is listed in Table 1. The pH values in SL, CS and BS are 6.72–9.05, 4.34–4.96 and 4.86–5.94, respectively. The lower pH in BS is consistent with the acidic red soils in southwest China. Compared to others, pH values in CS declined due to SO2 deposition from the smelting fumes. SL was alkaline and attributable for the fact that large amounts of carbonate (host rock) in Zn ores were decomposed into soda lime during
Discussions
In literature, a so-called metal hyperaccumulator should meet with the following four criterions: (1) accumulating capability, i.e. the threshold values of metal concentrations in plants have been used to define metal hyperaccumulators including 10 mg g−1 (DW) in shoots for Zn (Baker and Brooks, 1989, Salt et al., 1995), (2) BF index, i.e. the ratio of metal concentration in plants to that in soil is greater than 1.0 (Brooks et al., 1998), (3) translocation factor (TF) index, i.e. the ratio of
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Key Knowledge Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-135), the Guizhou Provincial Science and Technology Foundation, the Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Program (2010B031800008), and the National Basic Research Program of China (2009CB426307). The authors appreciate Prof. Long Yang in botany at the Guizhou Normal University, China for supporting the identification of all the plant species. Two anonymous reviewers are acknowledged
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