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Nutritional Status of Mediterranean Trees Growing in a Contaminated and Remediated Area

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Abstract

Soil contamination may contribute to forest decline, by altering nutrient cycling and acquisition by plants. This may hamper the establishment of a woody plant cover in contaminated areas, thus limiting the success of a restoration program. We studied the nutritional status of planted saplings of Holm oak (Quercus ilex subsp. ballota (Desf.) Samp.), white poplar (Populus alba L.), and wild olive tree (Olea europaea var. sylvestris Brot.) in the Guadiamar Green Corridor (SW Spain) and compared it with established adult trees. Soils in this area were affected by a mine-spill in 1998 and a subsequent restoration program. The spill resulted in soil acidification, due to pyrite oxidation, and deposited high concentrations of some trace elements. In some sites, we detected a phosphorus deficiency in the leaves of Q. ilex and O. europaea saplings, as indicated by a high N:P ratio (>16). For O. europaea, soil contamination explained 40% of the variability in leaf P and was negatively related to chlorophyll content. Soil pH was a significant factor predicting the variability of several nutrients, including Mg, P, and S. The uptake of Mg and S by P. alba was greater in acidic soils. The monitoring of soil pH is recommended since long-term effects of soil acidification may negatively affect the nutritional status of the trees.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Regional Ministry of Environment (Junta de Andalucía) for supporting this study within the SECOVER research program and the Spanish Ministry of Education for a PFU grant awarded to M.T. Domínguez. We thank Dr. Luis V. García for his statistical advice and Olga Cazalla (Centre for Scientific Instrumentation, University of Granada) for the ICP-MS measurements. We are grateful to José María Alegre and Isabel Ibáñez for their help in different stages of the study and to an anonymous reviewer for the comments on a previous version of the manuscript.

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  1. Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología, CSIC, P.O. Box 1052, E-41080, Seville, Spain

    María T. Domínguez, Teodoro Marañón & José M. Murillo

  2. Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, ETH Zürich, Universitätstrasse 16, CH-8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Rainer Schulin

  3. Department of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Lincoln University, P.O. Box 84, Lincoln 7647, Canterbury, New Zealand

    Brett H. Robinson

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  1. María T. Domínguez
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  2. Teodoro Marañón
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  3. José M. Murillo
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  5. Brett H. Robinson
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Correspondence to María T. Domínguez.

Appendix

Appendix

Concentration of trace elements in soil and leaves (adapted from Domínguez et al. 2008).

Table 6 Mean and range (minimum–maximum) of total concentrations (mg kg−1) of trace elements in soils in the Guadiamar Green Corridor, from spill-affected and unaffected sites
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Table 7 Trace element concentrations (mean ± standard error) in leaves of adult trees and afforested saplings from affected sites in the study area
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Domínguez, M.T., Marañón, T., Murillo, J.M. et al. Nutritional Status of Mediterranean Trees Growing in a Contaminated and Remediated Area. Water Air Soil Pollut 205, 305–321 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-009-0075-z

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