Plants are known naturally to absorb trace minerals (P, Fe, Cu, etc.) from the soil. Some plants, however, are hyperaccumulators, in the sense that they uptake extremely high amounts of a certain mineral. Does this have anything to do with the metabolism of the plant, or is it a product of environmental conditions?
may be it depends on the plany and its uptake requiremnts from soil. also, it could be a kind of adaptation that plant can do to survive.
regards
Dear Bench Acosta,
A high concentration of metal ions, both essential and non-essential, in the plant's environment is not desirable. On absorption in the plant there is substantial oxidative stress among other serious consequences. So plants devise methods to divert these metal ions in chelated form to other regions in the plant where oxidative stress is less. Some plants are perhaps able to do this better than others and so may be hyper accumulators. I hope this helps. Good luck.
Dear Bench Acosta,
it may related to plant tolerance of heavy metals due to it special enzymatic system(that work on detoxifyng these HMts.
Its genetically controlled compartmentation and/or defence mechanisms that provide the tolerance. There is a lot of information on plants such as aribodopsis. This does not answer the question, why?
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Medicine
- Disease
- Infectious Diseases