Hyperaccumulators are able to grow in contaminated soil and remove large amounts of toxic metals from the enviroment. The plants themself can later even be used to extract said toxic metals like quicksilver or lead.
Hyperaccumulators are able to grow in contaminated soil and remove large amounts of toxic metals from the enviroment. The plants themself can later even be used to extract said toxic metals like quicksilver or lead.
This is an evolutionary strategy for them to occupy niches that other plants can’t, this giving them a competitive edge. Some other metal tolerant plants don’t hyper accumulate, and have pathways to selectively uptake what they need without poisoning themselves.
Hyper accumulators take up everything and then just store it in the vacuoles of their cells to isolate the metals.
Importantly, when the plants die, the metals are re-released, so if you’re phyroremediating you have to harvest them and then dispose of them in a landfill.
Finally, hyper accumulators can pose a risk to wildlife that might browse on them, whereas metal tolerant plants may not