* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Fang). 1537-5110/$ – see front matter a 2009 IAgrE doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2009.12.008 Heavy metal stress in soils results in subtle changes in leaf chlorophyll concentration, which are related to crop growth and crop yield. Accurate estimation of the chlorophyll concentration of a crop under heavy metal stress is essential...

heavy metal pollution is a worldwide problem with serious environmental consequences. the objective of the present experiment was to investigate whether arginine as nitric oxide precursor and or polyamines substrate can decrease the destructive effects of oxidative stress induced by nickel contamination in hyoscyamus niger plant. in this study the effects of arginine pretreatment on alkaloid co...

Plants experience oxidative stress upon exposure to heavy metals that leads to cellular damage. In addition, plants accumulate metal ions that disturb cellular ionic homeostasis. To minimize the detrimental effects of heavy metal exposure and their accumulation, plants have evolved detoxification mechanisms. Such mechanisms are mainly based on chelation and subcellular compartmentalization. Che...

The relationship between plant species coexistence and soil microbial communities under heavy metal pollution has attracted much attention in ecology. However, whether plant species coexistence could offset the impacts of heavy metal combined pollution on soil microbial community structure and soil enzymes activities is not well studied. The modified ecological dose model and PCR-RAPD method we...

BACKGROUND Heavy metals naturally occur in the marine environment and ecosystems. Due to anthropogenic influence they became common waters and coastal regions pollutants in particular where their concentrations remain hazardously high. We therefore tested a protocol for combined analysis of 6 heavy metal (Pb, Cd, Cr, Zn, Fe and Hg) concentrations in mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis collected f...

Plants, like all other organisms, have evolved different mechanisms to maintain physiological concentrations of essential metal ions and to minimize exposure to non-essential heavy metals. Some mechanisms are ubiquitous because they are also required for general metal homeostasis, and they minimize the damage caused by high concentrations of heavy metals in plants by detoxification, thereby con...

Secondary metabolites play a vital role in the treatment of various ailments as well as in phytoremediation. The link between secondary metabolites and phytoremediation needs exploration. Hitherto, no information is available regarding the phytochemical components that exist in the root exudates of Cyperus alternifolius. This study was designed to determine the phytocomponents in the root exuda...

Naturally plants exposed with many adverse environmental conditions like biotic and a biotic stress. Despite all others stresses heavy metal stress is one of great importance which has a notable adverse effects on crop productivity and growth, heavy metal stress triggers different responses in plants, ranging from biochemical responses to crop yield. Understanding the biochemical and molecular ...

Excessive amounts of heavy metals adversely affect plant growth and development. Whereas some regions naturally contain high levels of heavy metals, anthropogenic release of heavy metals into the environment continuously increases soil contamination. The presence of elevated levels of heavy metal ions triggers a wide range of cellular responses including changes in gene expression and synthesis...

The rate of changes of heavy metal ions concentrations in the organism or biological system will determine the choice of strategy of realization of heavy metal ions effect and, consequently, the biological effect itself. Which of the possible strategies will dominate, depend on the rate of changes of concentration of heavy metal ions in biological systems, functional activity of organism at the...