Assessment of Morphogenetic diversity and phytoremediation potentials of plants growing in arsenic rich soils of Punjab

Abstract

Advancement in the agricultural production has given rise to land pollution. Continuous imbalanced use of fertilizes and indiscriminate use of herbicides, insecticides, etc. on the crops along with organic domestic and industrial wastes has caused serious environmental pollution. The cotton belt of Punjab has seen tremendous increase in the incidence of dreaded diseases, cancer during the last decade virtually making it a cancer region of Punjab. The block Talwandi Sabo, District Bathinda (Punjab) is falls in the arsenic belt of Punjab. The genotoxicity of soil samples was studied by two different test systems: Allium anaphase-telophase chromosome aberration assay (Allium assay) and Yeast assay. The data on Allium anaphase-telophase aberration assay and yeast assay revealed the genotoxic nature of soil samples collected from three villages (Jajjal, Giana and Malkana). The observations showed that the incidence of aberrations in the RTCs as well as convertants in yeast increased with the increase in the concentrations of the soil extracts in a dose dependent manner. Morphologically and cytologically the plants from the study area were found to be similar to the plants of the control site. The plants of Patiala populations of these species had more pollen fertility than that of the plants from polluted area. Based on the RAPD analysis of four populations of each of the species i.e., Achyranthes aspera, Ageratum conyzoides, Amaranthus virdis, Digera muricata, Parthenium hysterophorus and Tribulus terrestris formed two major cluster groups. The populations of Trianthema portulacastrum formed three cluster groups. The present study has clearly revealed that the denizens of the polluted area have the potential to tolerate high concentrations. The tolerance index (TI) for roots was observed to be maximum in Parthenium hysterophorus. In the present study TF, BF and PC was observed to be greater than one in the case of Achyranthes aspera.