The Role of Selenium and Risk Elements in Plants

Various chemical elements are essential for both plants and animals, i.e. are responsible for numerous biochemical and physiological processes, such as photosynthesis, enzymatic reactions, etc. However, these elements can be toxic for plants at the higher concentration levels, and in the case of enhanced element contents in the environment, they can be considered as risk selements, for instance zinc. Some elements are characterized by various beneficial effects for plants, but they were not yet classified as essential, such as selenium. The other group of elements, such as arsenic, cadmium, and lead, are not characterized by any essential function and their enhanced content in plant and animal tissues and manifested themselves only by toxicity symptoms. The text summarizes briefly some aspects of the uptake and accumulation of the mentioned elements by plants.