BIOREMEDIATION - Part I 

Minerva Biotecnologica 2001 March;13(1):41-54

Copyright © 2001 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Fertilia: a European International Cooperation (INCO EU) project for monitoring trace elements in agricultural ecosystems

Marmiroli N. ¹, Maesri E. ¹, Mucchino C. ¹, Antonioli G. ¹, Marmiroli M. ¹, Garcia Izquierdo C. ², Hernandez T. ², Waclawek W. ³, Mocko A. ³, Bozym M. ³, Nowak A. ⁴, Nowak J. ⁵, Vecera Z. ⁶, Docekal B. ⁶

¹ Division of Genetics and Environmental Biotechnologies, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Parma, Italy; ² Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Centro de Edafologìa y Biologia Aplicada del Segura, Murcia, Spain; ³ Institute of Chemistry, University of Opole, Opole, Poland; ⁴ Department of Microbiology, Academy of Agriculture, Szczecin, Poland; ⁵ Department of Biochemistry, Academy of Agriculture, Szczecin, Poland; ⁶ Institute of Analytical Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Department of Environmental Analytical Chemistry, Brno,Czech Republic

Background. A ­research pro­ject was ­financed start­ing in 1998 by the European Commission with­in the ­fourth Framework, involv­ing International Cooperation (­INCO EU) ­with Central European Countries. The pro­ject ­INCO Copernicus IC15-CT98-0124, acro­nym FER­TIL­IA, address­es the rel­e­vance of ­trace met­als for ­soil fer­til­ity. The par­tic­i­pants ­come ­from ­four dif­fer­ent coun­tries: Italy, ­also act­ing as Coordinator, ­with the University of Parma, Department of Environmental Sciences, Division of Genetics and Environmental Biotechnology; Spain, ­with Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Centre for the Biology of the Soil; Poland, ­with two part­ners, the Academy of Agriculture, Department of Microbiology and the University of Opole, Institute of Chemistry; final­ly, the Czech Republic, ­with the Academy of Sciences, Department of Environmental Analytical Chemistry. The par­tic­i­pants ­bring togeth­er dif­fer­ent exper­tise rang­ing ­from the ana­lyt­i­cal chem­is­try to ­soil micro­bi­ol­o­gy up to ­plant genet­ic engi­neer­ing and phys­ic spec­tros­co­py. The over­all pur­pose of the ­three ­years pro­ject FER­TIL­IA is to mon­i­tor the par­ti­tion­ing of ­trace ele­ments in agri­cul­tu­ral ­plants and veg­e­ta­bles ­grown on European ­soils sub­ject­ed to dif­fer­ent fer­til­isa­tion ­regimes, tak­ing ­into con­sid­er­a­tion all the bio­log­i­cal, ped­o­log­i­cal and geo­chem­i­cal fac­tors ­which can ­affect ­their ­form.
Methods. Objectives and phas­es of the ­research are: deter­mi­na­tion of met­al con­cen­tra­tion in dif­fer­ent sourc­es of agri­cul­tu­ral fer­til­is­ers (Action 1); phy­si­co-chem­i­cal anal­y­sis of met­al con­cen­tra­tion and aggre­ga­tion in European ­soils (Action 2); anal­y­sis of met­al con­tent and par­ti­tion­ing in dif­fer­ent organ­isms tak­en ­from dif­fer­ent lev­els of ­soil eco­sys­tem (Action 3); mor­pho­log­i­cal and func­tion­al ­effects of met­als mon­i­tored ­with bio­mark­ers micro­or­gan­isms, inver­te­brates, and ­plants (Action 4); anal­y­sis of ecot­ox­ic­o­log­i­cal and gen­o­tox­ic ­effects of met­als ­through the util­isa­tion of mod­el ­systems (Action 5); pro­duc­tion and descrip­tion of spa­tial mod­els of ­soil eco­sys­tems, by inte­grat­ing geo­chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal ­data with­in a Geographic Information System (GIS) (Action 6).
Results. After the ­first ­year of ­research, Actions 1, 2, 3, and 4 ­reached a sat­is­fac­to­ry set of experi­men­tal ­data. The ­last two ­actions are ­still in ­progress, ­because ­they ­require ­data ­from the ­first ­ones in ­order to be devel­oped.
Conclusions. Beside try­ing to ­show wheth­er ­heavy met­als can ­flow in rel­e­vant ­amounts ­from fer­til­is­ers to ­soils and ­then to ­plants and ­soil micro­or­gan­isms, ­this ­research pro­ject is try­ing to deter­mine at ­which ­degree agri­cul­tu­ral prac­tic­es can mod­i­fy ­soils met­als con­tent and the con­se­quenc­es ­this has on the ­crops qual­ity.