Chrysotile-Asbestos-Induced Damage in Panicum virgatum and Phleum pretense Species and Its Alleviation by Organic-Soil Amendment

Khansa Saleem, Muhammad Ahsan Asghar (), Muhammad Hamzah Saleem, Ali Raza, Gábor Kocsy, Nadeem Iqbal, Baber Ali, Mohammed Fahad Albeshr and Eijaz Ahmed Bhat
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Khansa Saleem: Department of Horticultural Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur 63181, Pakistan
Muhammad Ahsan Asghar: Department of Biological Resources, Agricultural Institute, Centre for Agricultural Research, ELKH, Brunszvik u. 2, H-2462 Martonvásár, Hungary
Muhammad Hamzah Saleem: College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
Ali Raza: CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization and Ecological Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610000, China
Gábor Kocsy: Department of Biological Resources, Agricultural Institute, Centre for Agricultural Research, ELKH, Brunszvik u. 2, H-2462 Martonvásár, Hungary
Nadeem Iqbal: Doctoral School of Environmental Sciences, University of Szeged, H-6720 Szeged, Hungary
Baber Ali: Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Mohammed Fahad Albeshr: Department of Zoology, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Eijaz Ahmed Bhat: Centre de Biologie Structurale (CBS), INSERM, CNRS, Univ Montpellier, 34090 Montpellier, France

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 17, 1-19

Abstract: Asbestos is an industrially important microfiber present in cement industries and some mining sites and is very toxic to plant growth and development, but it has been neglected over the years. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the hazardous effects of asbestos on the growth and development of two important grass species (switchgrass and timothy grass). In order to mitigate the toxic effects of asbestos, a compost (bio-fertilizer) was also used. The asbestos soil samples were collected within a 10 km area of a cement factory. The results revealed that the asbestos-contaminated soils displayed a considerable increment in heavy metal uptake including chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), vanadium (V), arsenic (As), and barium (Ba), which led to stunted plant growth. Consequently, the activities of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), and catalase (CAT) were stimulated to kept the redox balance under control. Among all the contaminated soils, the soil that was taken within a 0 Km area, closest to the cement factory, was the most toxic one. However, a compost amendment (25%) as a bio-fertilizer substantially reduced the toxic effects of asbestos fiber on the overall growth and development of plants, by reducing the metals’ uptake. Moreover, it was found that the roots of both grass species experienced higher heavy metal accumulation relative to the shoots. Collectively, it can be proposed that the studied grass species can be used for phytoextraction purposes, since both of them absorbed the heavy metals from the asbestos-contaminated soils.

Keywords: phytotoxicity; phytoremediation; hyper-accumulator plants; antioxidants; metal up-take; growth; oxidative damage; compost (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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