How plants cope with heavy metals

Botanical Studies

Table 1 Some examples of obvious toxic symptoms induced by metals

Metal	Toxic symptoms	Reference
Excess or deficiency of copper, excess of uranium, zinc, cadmium	Impact on Photosynthetic apparatus: chlorotic leaves, changed ratios of chlorophyll a and b, decreasing net photosynthetic rate	Ouzounidou 1995Viehweger and Geipel 2010Monnet et al. 2001Prasad 1995reviewed in Mysliwa-Kurdziel et al. 2004
Excess of aluminium, cadmium, copper	Effects on root ultrastructure: inhibition of root elongation, increase in volume of cortex cells, damage to epidermis	Kidd et al. 2001Vazquez et al. 1992, Ouzounidou, 1995reviewed in Barcelo et al. 2004
Excess of aluminium, cadmium, lead	Lipid peroxidation of membranes – membrane leakage, change of lipid composition	Kochian 1995Hernandez and Cooke 1997Stefanov et al. 1995
Cadmium, lead, uranium	Changes in cellular concentrations of essential micronutrients like iron, calcium, manganese, zinc	Hernandez et al. 1998Zhang et al. 2000Viehweger and Geipel 2010

It should be noted that not only excessive metal concentrations causes toxicity.