Arsenic Behaviour in Soil-Plant System: Biogeochemical Reactions and Chemical Speciation Influences

Effect of compost addition on arsenic uptake, morphological and physiological attributes of maize plants grown in contrasting soils

“…These results also concur with shoot As concentration data, whereby at C2.5 level an increasing trend in shoot As concentration was observed for plants in Narwala soil (Table 3). As described earlier, As-induced toxicity in the plant leaves has been reported to destroy membrane structure, drastically reducing the rate of photosynthesis carried out by plants (Khalid et al, 2016;, and hinder the biosynthesis of chlorophyll in plants (Hasanuzzaman et al, 2016;Mirza et al, 2016).…”

“…Arsenic is a toxic element and considered to be non-essential for plant growth (Khalid et al, 2016;. In this study, As phytotoxicity symptoms appeared in maize plants after 4 weeks of plant growth (qualitative observations), notably at high As levels with no compost (C0As80 and C0As120 treatments), and varied with soil type and applied compost levels.…”

“…However, relatively higher percentage reduction in shoot dry biomass was observed for plants in Narwala soil (31-65 %) than that of Shahkot soil (18-54 %) with respect to their control (C0As0) ( Table 2). It is well-known that As is non-essential for plant growth and causes toxicity even at low and moderate concentrations (Khalid et al, 2016). Arsenic-induced phytotoxicity and reduction in plant growth attributes, mainly shoot dry biomass, in maize plants grown in both soil types could possibly be attributed to malfunctioning of metabolic processes such as respiration and photosynthesis in plants under As stress.…”

“…Compost addition can influence soil As bioavailability. After uptake of heavy metal(loid), like As in this study, reactive oxygen species can be produced in plants which could cause oxidative and physiological damage to photosynthetic apparatus and gas exchange attributes of plants followed by plant death (Khalid et al, 2016;. Therefore, in this study we examined the influence of compost in mediating soil-plant transfer of As, and evaluated the compost-mediated control on plant As toxicity by determining different morphological, physiological and photosynthetic attributes of maize plants.…”

Sarcocornia neei as an Indicator of Environmental Pollution: A Comparative Study in Coastal Wetlands of Central Chile

“…In general, for the S. neei plant, we detected higher levels of metals in the sample from Los Maitenes coastal wetland, showing absorption of high concentrations of heavy metals, giving this plant possible phytoremediation properties [27] for cleaning the contaminated soil of coastal wetlands. The data can be compared to another study performed in 2004 in central Chile, where two species, Baccharis linearis and S. obtusiloba , presented levels of 535 mg/kg and 679 mg/kg, respectively [28].…”