Effects of Pseudomonas fluorescens Seed Bioinoculation on Heavy Metal Accumulation for Mirabilis jalapa Phytoextraction in Smelter-Contaminated Soil

Some Pseudomonas fluorescens strains, consistently isolated from the rhizosphere of wild plants grown in a soil that was highly polluted with illegal waste of smelter residues, were utilised for Mirabilis jalapa seed bioinoculation to verify their effects on seed germination and on promoting a higher heavy metal accumulation in the plant rhizosphere and/or uptake in the leaves. The high content of heavy metals in the soil induced a decrease in either the leaf dry weight or photosynthetic pigment concentration during all vegetative phase of M. jalapa. Bioinoculation with P. fluorescens strains significantly increased the germination of seeds and the root length in the contaminated soil. In some bacterial strain/seed combination, bioinoculation significantly increased the accumulation of heavy metals in M. jalapa rhizosphere. For Cd, the concentration of this metal in the rhizospheres of bioinoculated plants ranged from 270 to 910 μg g-1 of dry weight compared with 200 μg g-1 of dry weight for the non-coated plants. Two P. fluorescens strains, AA27 and MO49, which were isolated from Artemisia annua and Melilotus officinalis, respectively, induced a significantly higher rhizosphere availability also for Cr, Cu, Ni and Zn. However, despite the relevant accumulation of the heavy metals in the plant rhizosphere, generally the metal uptake into the leaves was rather low. Both analysis of variance and principal component analysis confirmed this finding. However, one P. fluorescens strain, CD1, which was isolated from the multi-metal accumulator Cynodon dactylon, significantly promoted the M. jalapa leaf uptake for Cr, Cu and Zn. The plant metal uptake assessment, confirmed the per se capability of M. jalapa to effectively uptake Cd (30 %) and Cu (12.72 %) from the rhizosphere to the leaves, whereas the uptake for the other metals was low: Ni (2.66 %), Zn (2.46 %), Cr (1.75 %), Pb (0.73 %). © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.