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Barium levels in soils and Centella asiatica


Citation

Ong, Ghim Hock and Yap, Chee Kong and Mahmood, Maziah and Tan, Soon Guan and Hamzah, Suhaimi (2013) Barium levels in soils and Centella asiatica. Tropical Life Sciences Research, 24 (1). pp. 55-70. ISSN 1985-3718; ESSN: 2180-4249

Abstract

In this study, Centella asiatica and surface soils were collected from 12 sampling sites in Peninsular Malaysia, and the barium (Ba) concentrations were determined. The Ba concentration [µg/g dry weight (dw)] was 63.72 to 382.01 µg/g in soils while in C. asiatica, Ba concentrations ranged from 5.05 to 21.88 µg/g for roots, 3.31 to 11.22 µg/g for leaves and 2.37 to 6.14 µg/g for stems. In C. asiatica, Ba accumulation was found to be the highest in roots followed by leaves and stems. The correlation coefficients (r) of Ba between plants and soils were found to be significantly positively correlated, with the highest correlation being between roots-soils (r=0.922, p<005), followed by leavessoils (r=0.890, p<005) and stems-soils (r=0.848, p<005). This indicates that these three parts of C. asiatica are good biomonitors of Ba pollution. For the transplantation study, four sites were selected as unpolluted [(Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM)], semi-polluted (Seri Kembangan and Balakong) and polluted sites (Juru). Based on the transplantation study under experimental field and laboratory conditions, Ba concentrations in C. asiatica were significantly (p<0.05) higher after three weeks of exposure at Seri Kembangan, Balakong and Juru. Thus, these experimental findings confirm that the leaves, stems and roots of C. asiatica can reflect the Ba levels in the soils where this plant is found. Three weeks after back transplantation to clean soils, the Ba levels in C. asiatica were still higher than the initial Ba level even though Ba elimination occurred. In conclusion, the leaves, stems and roots of C. asiatica are good biomonitors of Ba pollution.


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Official URL or Download Paper: http://www.tlsr.usm.my/tlsr24012013/a_2401_06.html

Additional Metadata

Item Type: Article
Divisions: Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences
Faculty of Science
Publisher: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia
Keywords: Barium; Centella asiatica; Correlation coefficient; Transplantation; Biomonitor
Depositing User: Nabilah Mustapa
Date Deposited: 22 Apr 2016 07:51
Last Modified: 22 Apr 2016 07:51
URI: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/28060
Statistic Details: View Download Statistic

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