Leaf-age and soil-plant relationships: key factors for reporting trace-elements hyperaccumulation by plants and design applications

Abstract

Relationships between the trace-elements (TE) content of plants and associated soil have been widely investigated especially to understand the ecology of TE hyperaccumulating species to develop applications using TE phytoextraction. Many studies have focused on the possibility of quantifying the soil TE fraction available to plants, and used bioconcentration (BC) as a measure of the plants ability to absorb TE. However, BC only offers a static view of the dynamic phenomenon of TE accumulation. Accumulation kinetics are required to fully account for TE distributions in plants. They are also crucial to design applications where maximum TE concentrations in plant leaves are needed. This paper provides a review of studies of BC (i.e. soil-plant relationships) and leaf-age in relation to TE hyperaccumulation. The paper focuses of Ni and Mn accumulators and hyperaccumulators from New Caledonia who were previously overlooked until recent Ecocatalysis applications emerged for such species. Updated data on Mn hyperaccumulators and accumulators from New Caledonia are also presented and advocate further investigation of the hyperaccumulation of this element. Results show that leaf-age should be considered in the design of sample collection and allowed the reclassification of Grevillea meisneri known previously as a Mn accumulator to a Mn hyperaccumulator.