Seasonal changes in concentrations of trace elements and rare earth elements in shoot samples of Juncus effusus L. collected from natural habitats in the Holy Cross Mountains, south-central Poland
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Juncus effusus is an emergent, perennial macrophyte growing in different parts of the world, including the temperate areas in Europe, Asia and North America, except for arid and mountainous areas. J. effusus prefers moist and wet soils, especially in sunny locations (Huxley, 1992). This plant species has gained a broad scientific interest for its many applications, including the use in medicine (Peng et al., 2018), production of natural fungicides for sustainable agriculture (Thuerig et al., 2016), as well as in: phytoremediation (Sun and Saeed, 2009), phytostabilization (Najeeb et al., 2017), phytovolatilization (Wiessner et al., 2013) and phytodegradation (Syranidou et al., 2017).
It has been shown that J. effusus can effectively remove both inorganic contaminants including arsenic, chromium, zinc, ammonium and organic pollutants as well as a mixture of inorganic and organic contaminants from wastewater and soil (Matthews et al., 2004, Bouldin et al., 2006, Gruber et al., 2008, Rahman et al., 2014, Lizotte and Moore, 2017, Syranidou et al., 2017, Zhang et al., 2017). Metals and metalloids are among the most often studied inorganic contaminants that can be removed from wastewater or soil using J. effusus. Because, similarly to many halophytes, J. effusus has a high resistivity to toxic metals, and therefore it is recommended for treatment of wastewater abundant in Zn, Mn, Cd, Cr, and Cu. Despite a high tolerance to toxic metals shown by J. effusus, some authors reported adverse physiological response to high concentrations of ions in the treated wastewater. Gruber et al. (2008) found that a maximum concentration of potassium dichromate in wastewater not affecting J. effusus was 34 μM. Addition of chelating agents, such as citric acid, to contaminated substrate improves Mn phytoextraction with the use of J. effusus, and alleviates the negative symptoms (Najeeb et al., 2009).
Efficiency of the removal of contaminants by J. effusus has usually been studied under controlled conditions (hydroponic experiments with synthetic wastewater and mesocosm studies), and some of the experiments were also performed under field conditions (Syranidou et al., 2017). The least frequently reported are studies of samples collected from natural habitats. They are usually restricted to polluted areas, including mining and post-mining areas (Samecka-Cymerman and Kempers, 2001, Anawar et al., 2006, Jana et al., 2012, Peng et al., 2018), industrial areas (Moreira et al., 2011) or stormwater catchment areas (Fritioff and Greger, 2003).
One of the most often reported examples of the use of J. effusus for phytoremediation is the removal of metals from contaminated soils and wastewater in the mining and post-mining areas (Favas et al., 2012, Zhang et al., 2012). This can be explained not only by a high tolerance of this species to high metal concentrations in soil, but also by its ability to thrive at extremely low pH of the growing media. Soils in mining areas are often affected by acid mine drainage originating from the weathering of pyrite and, to much lesser extent, of other metal sulfides (Migaszewski et al., 2008). J. effusus can tolerate pH as low as 2.1 (Fyson, 2000). Notwithstanding a long interest in the studies of element uptake and accumulation by J. effusus, still little is known about a typical content of such elements as silver and rare earth elements in samples of this species collected from natural habitats.
This study aimed at comparison of trace element and rare earth element concentrations in samples collected seasonally (four times per vegetative season) from three distinct locations characterized by a different land use. The main objectives of this study are to: (i) compare concentrations of trace elements in shoot with those in root and soil in order to describe accumulation and translocation of each element in J. effusus; (ii) check whether seasonal differences in element concentrations have the same pattern in all investigation sites; and (iii) find potential North American Composite Shale (NASC)-normalized rare earth element concentration anomalies in the examined samples.
Section snippets
Study area and sampling
Samples of the aboveground parts of J. effusus were collected at the same sampling points every two months from May to November of 2014 from three investigation sites: Nowy Skoszyn (N), Serwis (S), and Biesak-Białogon (B) (Fig. 1). Nowy Skoszyn and Serwis are small localities (with the population of about 630 and 320, respectively) in the eastern part of the Świętokrzyskie Province whereas Biesak-Białogon is a natural reserve located in the southwestern part of the city of Kielce (capital of
Trace elements
Concentrations of trace elements in shoot and root samples of J. effusus are presented in Table 1. The pH and concentrations of Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, and Zn in soil samples measured with the use of XRF are reported in Table 2.
Except for Ag showing the highest concentrations in May in all the samples examined, and Co and Ni with the highest concentrations in July, there are no clear similarities in spatial trends of the other element abundances in shoot samples of J. effusus. A probable reason for
Conclusions
The results of this study confirmed bioaccumulative properties of J. effusus toward trace metals in natural habitats. Trace element concentrations show different temporal trends at three investigation sites. The following conclusions can be drawn from this study:
- (1)
The highest concentrations of Ag were found in May whereas Co and Ni in July in samples from all sampling areas.
- (2)
Mn, Zn, Cd and Ag are taken up by J. effusus and effectively transported from roots to shoots.
- (3)
J. effusus shows much higher
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Professor Zdzisław M. Migaszewski of Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce for proofreading the manuscript and for his insightful comments.
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