the toxicity of four potentially toxic trace elements (cu, ni, pb and zn) to annual atriplex (a.hortensis and a. rosea) was examined to determine if this plant showed sufficient tolerance to be used tophytoremediate soils polluted with these heavy metals. the soils, which contained up to (per kilogram) 501mg cu, 1674 mg ni, 1334 mg pb and 3588 mg of zn were sampled around metal-contaminated sit...

Heavy metal contamination of soils has become a serious problem in industrial or agricultural areas. Soils polluted with heavy metals pose a significant health risk to humans as well as plants and animals, often requiring soil remediation practices. Synthetic chelates such as ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) have been shown to enhance phytoextraction of some heavy metals from contaminated...

Naturally occurring soil organic compounds stabilize potentially toxic elements (PTEs) such as Cu, Cd, Pb, and Mn. The hypothesis of this work was that an insoluble glycoprotein, glomalin, produced in copious amounts on hyphae of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) sequesters PTEs. Glomalin can be extracted from laboratory cultures of AMF and from soils. Three different experiments were conducte...

We evaluate the mid-term effects of two amendments and the establishment of R. officinalis on chemical and biochemical properties in a trace element contaminated soil by a mine spill and the possible use of this plant for stabilization purposes. The experiment was carried out using containers filled with trace element polluted soil, where four treatments were established: organic treatment (bio...

Five samples of soil collected from a lead and zinc mine were used to assess the effect of combined contamination of heavy metals on soil bacterial communities using a polyphasic approach including characterization of isolates by culture method, community level catabolic profiling in BIOLOG GN microplates, and genetic community fingerprinting by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of 16S rD...

Activity of the enzymes can give information on the kind and duration of the effects of pollutants on the metabolic activity of soil. Results of studies on the dehydrogenase activity in soils experimentally contaminated with diesel fuel, with and without modification used in investigation over biodegradation process (including fertilization, stirring and inoculation) were presented in paper. St...

Risk analysis can be used as a scientific tool for addressing the health of ecosystems. Here we describe a protocol for characterizing risks in the ecosystems of several polluted soil scenarios in the Madrid Community (Central Spain). Our starting hypothesis was that to recover the health of degraded ecosystems that could affect public health, an ecotoxicological diagnosis of each site is requi...

Exogenous plasmid isolation was used to assess the presence of mobilizing plasmids in several soils and activated sludges. Triparental matings were performed with Escherichia coli (a member of the gamma subgroup of the Proteobacteria) as the donor of an IncQ plasmid (pMOL155, containing the heavy metal resistance genes czc: Co, Zn, and Cd), Alcaligenes eutrophus (a member of the beta subgroup o...