Plants accumulating heavy metals in the Sudety Mts

Teresa Brej,Jerzy Fabiszewski

doi:10.5586/asbp.2006.009

Abstract

The Sudeten flora consists of some plants we can recognize as heavy metal accumulators. Between others there are: Thlaspi caerulescens, Arabidopsis halleri, Armeria maritima ssp. halleri s.l. and probably the endemic fern Asplenium onopteris var. silesiaca. The authors present the concentrations of some important heavy metals measured in aboveground plant dry weight. The highest concentration of zinc was 8220 ppm (Thlaspi), nickel - 3100 ppm (Thlaspi), lead - 83 ppm (Armeria), copper - 611 ppm (Arabidopsis) and cadmium - 28 ppm (Thlaspi). The concentrations depend rather on species or population specification than on ore deposit quality. There are no typical hyperaccumulator among plants we have examined, but some signs of hyperaccumulation of nickel, zinc and lead could be observed. There are no typical endemic taxa, only Asplenium onopteris var. silesiaca and Armeria maritima ssp. halleri may be recognized as neoendemic taxa, but still of unclear systematic position. During the study we tried to find out why some Sudeten vascular plants do not develop heavy metals hyperaccumulation and why they are rather latent hyperaccumulators. Finally, we suggest to protect some metallicolous areas in spite they are rather territories with low plant biodiversity.

Highlights

Flower plants are characterized by a differentiated capability to take up and accumulate heavy metals
According to the opinions of many authors, as hyperaccumulators recognized are such plant species, which accumulate in tissues of aboveground organs more than 0.1% (100 ppm) in dry mass of nickel, cobalt, copper, lead and chrome and plants in dry mass of which more than 1% (10 000 ppm) of zinc or manganese was recorded (Baker and Brooks 1989; Brooks 1998)
The group of the so-called serpentine ferns is usually not numbered among heavy metals accumulators (Brooks 1988)

Summary

Introduction

Flower plants are characterized by a differentiated capability to take up and accumulate heavy metals. Among ecologists and physiologists the greatest interest evoke species, the so-called hyperaccumulators, taking up and accumulating selected metals in considerable amounts in relation to their total biomass. The capability of these plants to an increased accumulation is variable, according to the uptake of metallic elements. Most of them form floras characteristic for soils containing very high amounts of metals in distant areas, like Africa, Cuba, New Caledonia, Brazil and California. These exotic species form usually endemic floras (Roberts and Proctor 1992; Brooks 1998)

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