The effect of lead on plants in terms of growing and biochemical parameters: a review

By F. Nas, Muhammad Ali. MOJ Ecology & Environmental Sciences, 2018

184 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The unrestricted developmental activities such as industrialization and urbanization carried out during the past few years have given rise to serious problems of environmental contamination. A general increase in the level of heavy metals poses a pervasive threat to the natural ecosystem. Heavy metals are defined as metals having a density higher than 5 g/cm3. Of the total 90 naturally occurring elements, 53 are considered heavy metals and few are of biological importance .1 Based on their solubility under physiological conditions, 17 heavy metals may be available to living cells and have significance for the plant and animal communities within various ecosystems.2 Increase in levels of heavy metals in soils could also be attributed to factors such as soil properties or different agricultural practices such as application of sludge to agricultural land.3 Among the heavy metals Zinc (Zn), Nickel (Ni), Copper (Cu), Vanadium (V), Cobalt (Co) and Chromium (Cr) are non-toxic heavy elements at low concentration. Arsenic (As), Mercury (Hg), Silver (Ag), Cadmium (Cd), Lead (Pb) and Aluminium (Al) have no known function as nutrients and seems to be more or less toxic to plants and microorganisms.4 Accumulation of heavy metals such as cadmium in the environment is now becoming a major cause of environmental pollution.

Subfields: Analytical Chemistry, Physiology, Plant Science

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