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The potential of beach wrack as plant biostimulant to mitigate metal toxicity: mineral composition, antioxidant properties and effects against Cu-induced stress

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Abstract

Plant biostimulants such as seaweed extracts, present a sustainable alternative to agrochemicals. Moreover, the accumulation of beach-cast seaweed (wrack), due to climate change and anthropic pressures, is expected to increase in the coming decades. Thus, from a perspective of circular economy, based on the valorisation of an organic residue, this study aimed at achieving an elemental and biochemical characterisation of beach wrack and understanding the effects of an aqueous extract prepared from this residue on the mitigation of metal-induced stress, using barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) as a model. The quantification of wrack’s macro- and micronutrients showed that K, Ca and Na were the most abundant elements, being this composition similar to that of other organic fertilisers. Furthermore, despite the studied wrack having lower values of photosynthetic pigments, amino acids and sugars, higher amounts of phenols and flavonoids (8.35 ± 0.24 and 3.95 ± 1.22 mg g−1 dry matter respectively) were detected when compared to freshly collected seaweeds. This work highlighted that wrack showed potential as a fertiliser—through increasing root biomass (63%) and leaf biometry (up to 45%) in plants treated with 5.0 and 7.5 g L−1 wrack extract alone—also being a possible cost-effective, eco-friendly and sustainable biostimulant to mitigate the phytotoxic effects of Cu, since plants treated with 7.5 g wrack L−1 showed an increase of 34% in leaf length, when compared to seedlings exposed only to Cu.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files).

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Funding

This work was developed under the research project Val-WRACK (POCI-01–0145-FEDER-029818), co-financed by COMPETE 2020, Portugal 2020, the EU through the ERDF and by national funds through FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology within the scope of UIDB/05748/2020 and UIDP/05748/2020 and through the summer school scholarship “Verão com Ciência – Hands on Science for Sustainable AgriFood Production: From the Soil to the Fork”, promoted by FCT, in collaboration with Direção Geral do Ensino superior (DGES); M. Martins, C. Soares and B. Sousa acknowledge the support by grants (MM: SFHR/BD/143268/2019; CS: SFRH/BD/115643/2016; BS: SFRH/2020.07826.BD) from FCT.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. GreenUPorto - Sustainable Agrifood Production Research Centre & INOV4AGRO, Biology Department, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre s/n, 4169-007, Porto, Portugal

    Filipa Sousa, Maria Martins, Bruno Sousa, Cristiano Soares, Ruth Pereira & Fernanda Fidalgo

  2. CIQ-UP, Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Rua Do Campo Alegre, 4169-007, Porto, Portugal

    Manuel Azenha

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  1. Filipa Sousa
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  2. Maria Martins
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  3. Bruno Sousa
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Contributions

FS, MM, CS, RP, FF—conceptualization; FS, MM, BS, CS, MA—investigation; FS, MM, CS, RP—formal analysis; FF and RP—resources; FS, MM, CS—writing—original draft; FS, MM, CS, BS, FF, RP—writing—review and editing; FF and RP—supervision.

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Correspondence to Filipa Sousa or Maria Martins.

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Filipa Sousa and Maria Martins contributed equally for this research and should both be considered as first authors.

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Sousa, F., Martins, M., Sousa, B. et al. The potential of beach wrack as plant biostimulant to mitigate metal toxicity: mineral composition, antioxidant properties and effects against Cu-induced stress. J Appl Phycol 34, 667–678 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-021-02636-4

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