Authors: Yu Guo Yangrong Fu Sen Yan Yi Yang Yuepin Guo Zhengyu Bao
Publish Date: 2011/08/24
Volume: 66, Issue: 4, Pages: 1083-1089
Abstract
Consuming edible plants contaminated by heavy metals transferred from soil is an important pathway for human exposure to environmental contaminants In the past several decades heavy metal accumulation in contaminated soil has been widely studied however few researches investigated the background levels of metals in plants and evaluated the difference in plants grown in soils produced from different parent rocks In this study a systemic survey of heavy metal distribution and accumulation in the soil–pepper system was investigated in an unpolluted area Hainan Island China Levels of Cu Pb Zn and Cd were measured in soils and pepper fruits from five representative peppergrowing areas with different soil parent rocks ie basalt granite sedimentary rock metamorphic rock and alluvial deposits Average concentrations of Cu Pb Zn and Cd in pepper fruits were 1152 084 877 and 005 mg/kg respectively The concentrations of heavy metals in soils are controlled by the parent materials and varied greatly from in different areas Heavy metal contents in all pepper samples were lower than the Chinese maximum contaminant levels The relationship between heavy metals in soils and biological absorption coefficient BAC of pepper fruits suggests that the uptake ability of pepper for soil metals depends mainly on the physiological mechanism while in some cases the soil types and supergene environment are also important
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