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Assessing the ecotoxicological effects of long-term contaminated mine soils on plants and earthworms: relevance of soil (total and available) and body concentrations

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Abstract

The interactions and relevance of the soil (total and available) concentrations, accumulation, and acute toxicity of several essential and non-essential trace elements were investigated to determine their importance in environmental soil assessment. Three plant species (T. aestivum, R. sativum, and V. sativa) and E. fetida were simultaneously exposed for 21 days to long-term contaminated soils collected from the surroundings of an abandoned pyrite mine. The soils presented different levels of As and metals, mainly Zn and Cu, and were tested at different soil concentrations [12.5, 25, 50, and 100 % of contaminated soil/soil (w/w)] to increase the range of total and available soil concentrations necessary for the study. The total concentrations in the soils (of both As and metals) were better predictors of earthworm uptake than were the available concentrations. In plants, the accumulation of metals was related to the available concentrations of Zn and Cu, which could indicate that plants and earthworms accumulate elements from different pools of soil contaminants. Moreover, Zn and Cu, which are essential elements, showed controlled uptake at low concentrations. The external metal concentrations predicted earthworm mortality, whereas in plants, the effects on growth were correlated to the As and metal contents in the plants. In general, the bioaccumulation factors were lower at higher exposure levels, which implies the existence of auto-regulation in the uptake of both essential and non-essential elements by plants and earthworms.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Carmen del Rio and José Luis Pareja for their technical assistance. This work was financed by the Community of Madrid through the EIADES Project (S-2009/AMB/1478) and by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science project CTM2010-21922-C02-02. The authors also thank the Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Bustarviejo for admittance to the mine. The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environment Department, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA), Ctra. A Coruña, km 7.5, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Concepción García-Gómez & María Dolores Fernández

  2. Agricultural Chemistry Department, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Avda. Tomas y Valiente, nº 7, Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Elvira Esteban & Beatriz Sánchez-Pardo

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  1. Concepción García-Gómez
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  2. Elvira Esteban
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  3. Beatriz Sánchez-Pardo
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  4. María Dolores Fernández
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Correspondence to María Dolores Fernández.

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García-Gómez, C., Esteban, E., Sánchez-Pardo, B. et al. Assessing the ecotoxicological effects of long-term contaminated mine soils on plants and earthworms: relevance of soil (total and available) and body concentrations. Ecotoxicology 23, 1195–1209 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-014-1262-2

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