Novosphingobium sp. HS2aR improved plant growth in contaminated environments

SARA RODRIGUEZ-CONDE; LÁZARO MOLINA; PAOLA GONZÁLEZ; ALICIA GARCÍA-PUENTE; ANA SEGURA

APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2016 vol. 100 p. 10627 - 10636

0175-7598

At the same time that the European Union (EU)policy recommend to direct efforts towards reductions of heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and mining residues, there is the need to increase the cultivable areas within Europe to cope with the increasing demands for food and energy crops. Bioremediation is a good technique forthe restoration of contaminated soils; however, it has not beenused extensively because of the variability of the outcome.This variability is frequently due to a bad establishment offoreign degrading populations in soil. We have demonstratedthat Novosphingobium sp. HS2aR (i) is able to compete withother root colonizers and with indigenous bacteria, (ii) is ableto establish in high numbers in the contaminated environmentsand (iii) is able to remove more than 90 % of the extractablephenanthrene in artificially contaminated soils.Furthermore, we have demonstrated that the capacity to removephenanthrene is linked to the ability to promote plant growth incontaminated environments. The fact that the presence ofNovosphingobium sp. HS2aR improves the growth of plants incontaminated soil suggests that it may be a useful strain forutilization in amelioration of soil quality while improving the growth of economically important energy crops, thus addingvalue to the bioremediation strategy.