English

Noun

hyperaccumulator ‎(plural hyperaccumulators)

1. (biology) Any plant that can accumulate large quantities of trace elements from its environment, and thus may be used in phytoremediation or phytomining.
   • 2000, Donald L. Wise, Bioremediation of Contaminated Soils, page 735,

     Hyperaccumulator species are able to accumulate higher metal concentrations in their shoots than surrounding nonaccumulator plants, even from soils containing nonphytotoxic background levels of metals [35-37].

   • 2008, M. N. V. Prasad, Trace Elements as Contaminants and Nutrients, page 72,

     Also, the progress of constructing ideal hyperaccumulators by using biological technologies is slow.

   • 2010, Peter M. Kopittke, Enzo Lombi, Neal W. Menzies, Ravi Naidu, 21: Principles of Plant-based Remediation of Contaminated Soils, Bharat P. Singh (editor), Industrial Crops and Uses, page 448,

     To date, over 400 species have been identified as hyperaccumulators, with this number increasing continuously as new species are identified (Baker et al., 2000).

Related terms

• hyperaccumulation‎

See also

• phytomining
• phytoremediation
• phytoremediation on Wikipedia.Wikipedia