Phytoremediation Using Microbial Communities: I

Abstract

The presence of heavy metals in the soil through anthropogenic activities can be unfavorable to the plant growth and the environment. Different strategies have been used to remediate the polluted soils such as the use of tolerant plants, hyperaccumulators, and the soil microbes, which are able to alleviate the stress of heavy metals in the soil through absorbing and decreasing their uptake, by plant. The tolerant plants can use different mechanisms to survive under high concentration of heavy metals including the accumulation of metals in their vacuoles, decreasing their uptake by the aerial parts, and production of root products, which can affect the mobility of heavy metals in the rhizosphere. However, the hyperaccumulators are able to absorb considerable amounts of heavy metals while their growth remains unaffected. The use of biological methods such as soil microbes has been proved to be effective on the remediation of soil pollution. Different mechanisms are used by the soil microbes to remediate the polluted soils such as the production of different products, increasing plant growth, detoxifying the unfavorable effects of heavy metals, affecting the bioavailability of heavy meals, etc. In this chapter some of the most important details related to the use of soil microbes such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, and endophytic microbes for the remediation of polluted soil are reviewed and analyzed.