Flora of toxic depots in selected industrial zones

Abstract

Floristic composition in three industrial areas with soils contaminated by heavy metals (As, Cd, Cu, Hg, Pb, Zn) and organic pollutants (polychlorinated biphenyls) was studied. The content of Pb was only significantly correlated with the floristic composition and explained 13.8% of its variability considering spatial dependency of the sites. No correlation was found for PCBs. Altogether, 237 plant vascular species were found at three study sites (117, 133 and 105, respectively). The three study areas differed in their species composition represented by their own characteristic species. The gradient in the content of natives/non-natives, species number, prevailing life forms and indicator values for plant species investigated was revealed. Based on our results, for phytoremediation purposes we can select productive plant species with high biomass and ability to accumulate large amounts of heavy metals or organic compounds and surviving on soils with low mineral content.

Remediation potential of early successional pioneer species Chenopodium album and Tripleurospermum inodorum

“…Field application for phytoextraction purposes usually involves fast growing species characterized by high biomass production (French et al 2006;Van Nevel et al 2011;Kacálková et al 2015;Salam et al 2019). The metal accumulation potential of plants from natural vegetation was also studied in previous experiments (Brekken and Steinnes 2004;Petřík et al 2009;Irshad et al 2015;Bandiera et al 2016). In natural successions, herbaceous species are reported to play an important role as initial vegetation in terms of phytoremediation, mainly due to their good extraction and degradation rates (Olson et al 2003).…”