Investigations of Toxic and Genotoxic Effects of Heavy Metals and their Model Mixture on Plants

Abstract

In the recent investigations of environment pollution, in order to determine toxic effects of industrial sewage, herbicides, and heavy metals, higher plants are more commonly investigated. Toxic and genotoxic effects of separate heavy metals and their mixtures on plants – test-organisms have been investigated. Concentrations of heavy metals that were found in the studied mixture were taken into account. Besides, standard toxicological characteristics (EC50) were determined both for separate metals and for heavy metal model mixture and the level of toxicity was evaluated for separate heavy metals and their mixture. Toxic and genotoxic effects were investigated on great duckweed (Spirodela polyrrhiza) (L.) Schleid.) and on spidewort (Tradescantia clone BNL 02). It has been established that according to the toxicity, the studied metals can be grouped into the following sequence: Cu > Ni > Cr (VI) > Zn > Fe, whereas according to the genotoxicity, they can be grouped into this sequence: Cu > Cr (VI) > Ni > Zn....