Distribution and dispersion of heavy metals in the rock–soil–moss system of the black shale areas in the southeast of Guizhou Province, China

Abstract

Black shales are easily exposed duo to human activities such as mining, road construction, and shale gas development, which results in several environmental issues including heavy metals (HMs) pollution, soil erosion and the destruction of vegetation. Moss are widely used to monitor metal pollution in the atmosphere, but few studies on the distribution and dispersion of HMs in the rock -soil -moss system are available. Here, mosses (P. exuosa Harv), growing soils, and corresponding parent rocks were collected from black shale areas. After appropriate pretreatment, samples were analyzed for multiple elements concentration by ICP-AES and ICP-MS. The results show that black shales parent rocks have elevated HMs concentration, and act as a source of multiple metals. Soil signi cantly inherit and accumulate heavy metals released from black shale. Signi cant positive correlations between HMs in P.exuosa Harv and the growing soils indicate that HMs are mainly originating from geological source rather than atmospheric deposition. Compared with other elements, only the transfer factor (TF) of Cd is greater than 1, the normal functioning of mineral elements (K and Zn) absorption and transportation may contribute to its high tolerance to Cd. Finally, both the BCF and TF for most HMs in P. exuosa Harv are less than 1, indicated that it has a tolerance and exclusion mechanism for these metals. Therefore, the luxuriant and spontaneous growth of P. exuosa Harv could be used as a phytostabilization pioneer plant in the black shale outcrop where vascular plants are rare.

Mythbusters: Unravelling the pollutant uptake processes in mosses for air quality biomonitoring

“…In tracheophytes, the cuticle is a hydrophobic layer covering aerial organs at the interface between the plant and the environment (Salminen et al, 2018;Bhanot et al, 2021;Xu et al, 2021b). This structure can be divided into (i) the lower "cuticle layer", located on the surface of epidermal cell walls and composed of a cross-linked matrix of the polyester cutin covalently linked to polysaccharides; and (ii) the overlying "cuticle proper", containing waxes and fibrous polysaccharides embedded in a cutin matrix (Niklas et al, 2017;Bhanot et al, 2021).…”

“…This structure would have provided protection against (mainly) water loss and solar radiation (Buda et al, 2013). Phylogenomic evidence suggests that cuticles originated in the last common ancestor of embryophytes (the ensemble of bryophytes, pteridophytes, and seed plants), and that the machinery and regulation involved in cuticle biosynthesis is ancient and highly conserved across land plants (Niklas et al, 2017;Kong et al, 2020;Xu et al, 2021b).…”

Characteristics, Health Risk Assessment, and Transfer Model of Heavy Metals in the Soil—Food Chain in Cultivated Land in Karst

“…Meanwhile, it is abundant in mineral resources, with more than 110 types of minerals, including mercury, barite, coal, antimony, and gold, identified [ 18 ]. The heavy metals produced by a large number of mining activities have polluted the surrounding farmland and atmosphere, causing serious ecological and environmental problems [ 19 ]. Mining, metallurgy, and other human activities are superimposed on high geochemical background values of heavy metals, which exacerbates the accumulation of heavy metals in karst agricultural land soils and makes the safety of regional agricultural products more prominent [ 20 ].…”

“…However, most of the previous studies have emphasized heavy metal contamination in soils of karst areas and its sources [ 19 , 28 ] and often neglected heavy metals in foods, and their relationships have not been fully explored [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. Rice ( Oryza sativa L.), maize ( Zea mays L.), and cabbage ( Brassica oleracea L. var.…”

Treatment of Conbercept for macular edema secondary to branch retinal vein occlusion in minority areas of Southeast Guizhou

“…However, the incidence of different nationalities in China has not been reported. The southeast of Guizhou Province is inhabited by minority nationality, mainly Miao and Dong, which provides convenience for our research [9] . We treated BRVO-ME patients of Han, Miao and Dong nationalities with intravitreal injection of Conbercept.…”