Phytoremediation of mercury in pristine and crude oil contaminated soils: Contributions of rhizobacteria and their host plants to mercury removal

摘要

The rhizospheric soils of three tested legume crops: broad beans (Viciafaba), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) and pea (Pisum sativum), and two nonlegume crops: cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and tomato, (Lycopersicon esculentum) contained considerable numbers (the magnitude of 10~5 g~(-1) soil) of bacteria with the combined potential for hydrocarbon-utilization and mercury-resistance. Sequencing of the 16S rRNA coding genes of rhizobacteria associated with broad beans revealed that they were affiliated to Citrobacter freundii, Enterobacter aerogenes, Exiquobacterium aurantiacum, Pseudomonas veronii. Micro-coccus luteus, Brevibacillus brevis, Arthrobacter sp. and Flavobacterium psychrophilum. These rhizobacteria were also diazotrophic, i.e. capable of N_2 fixation, which makes them self-sufficient regarding their nitrogen nutrition and thus suitable remediation agents in nitrogen-poor soils, such as the oily desert soil. The crude oil attenuation potential of the individual rhizobacteria was inhibited by HgCl_2, but about 50% or more of this potential was still maintained in the presence of up to 40 mg l~(-1) HgCl_2. Rhizobacteria-free plants removed amounts of mercury from the surrounding media almost equivalent to those removed by the rhizospheric bacterial consortia in the absence of the plants. It was concluded that both the collector plants and their rhizospheric bacterial consortia contributed equivalently to mercury removal from soil.