Abstract
Blechnum orientale L. is a traditional, medicinal fern found in China. To assess the characteristics of heavy metals and As accumulation, the fronds, roots, and the rooting soils of this fern were sampled from urban, suburban, and rural woodlands across Guangdong Province in southern China. The concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn in both the fern and its rooting soils were separately detected by ICP-MS. Contamination levels of woodland rooting soils were also assessed using both a single pollution index and the Nemerow pollution index. Both the metal concentrations and the pollution index showed that soils from urban, suburban, and even rural woodlands were adversely contaminated by As, Cd, Hg, and Pb. Based on transfer factor, B. orientale had good translocation of As, Hg, and Mn, but poor translocation of Cd, Cr, Ni, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn from the roots to the fronds. This result suggests that this fern could be an excluder to latter metals. Despite the significantly higher levels of metals in the roots as compared with the fronds, the low bioaccumulation factor suggests that this fern has a weak capacity for metal accumulation.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Hui Mo, Jiong Li, Ling-ling Zhang, and Yi-min Xu for their assistance with the experiment and Xian-shu Zeng for his assistance with the data analysis.
Funding
This study was jointly supported by the Innovation Program of Guangdong Forestry Science and Technology (Nos. 2010KJCX014, 2011KJCX020), the National Key Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB956701), the Key Special Project for Introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (No. GML2019ZD0408), Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Southern Subtropical Plant Diversity, and the Scientific Research Fund of Huaqiao University (605-50Y17068).
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Yu, H., Li, S., Wang, A. et al. Accumulation of Heavy Metals and As in the Fern Blechnum orientale L. from Guangdong Province, Southern China. Water Air Soil Pollut 231, 342 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-020-04645-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-020-04645-4